The collage hanging in our stairway

Guys? This is the part where you lie to me, tell me that, no, it was just the little kid years that flew by like I was blinking, that the rest of it slows way down, that he’s going to stop morphing into a man while I’m standing here, watching it happen.

He went to “shadow” at the second hippie-dippy middle school yesterday, and I’m really going to need to come up with another nickname for it if he gets in, because that sounds like I’m not 100% on-board with the whole concept. It’s not exactly far off the mark when Eric calls me a dirty hippie, myself, so, sure, I’m down with Sam potentially calling his teachers by their first names and stopping to pet the school dog on his way down to the bathroom where they’re growing the hydroponic tomatoes. Cool with me, y’know? More importantly, cool with him. Yesterday’s visit was a particular success, since he actually got to know a couple kids by name, and he got to sit in on a comics class. No kidding. So he likes that school, I’d have to say.

We’re in the waiting game now, where we’ll chew our nails and check the mail to see if his name gets picked in the lottery to attend either charter school. If not, well, he’ll go to Mega-Middle and be a good little cog. I know, I know. I’m not telling him that! I’m being all sugar and cream about the whole business, talking to him about each school’s pros and cons, and he thinks he’d probably be happy anywhere. (Mega-Middle has ROBOTICS. That soothes a lot of worries for a ten-year-old boy.) ALl the same, I heard him pray last night to get into one of the hippie schools, and darn it, I’m not a rock. That twisted my gut.

This is stupid, really. We didn’t do this when I was a kid. You lived in a neighborhood, so you went to that school. My elementary school fed to three different middle schools, and if your parents didn’t like the one you were supposed to go to, well, then, it was the Christian school for you, where they had to hold their hands folded at their waists when they walked demurely down the halls. (I had friends who went there.) There wasn’t a whole lot of anxiety involved, so far as I was aware. Maybe we have too many choices these days. Maybe if this wasn’t going on at the same time as my friends with younger kids are frantically doing the “which elementary school?” dance, which is constantly keeping it at the forefront of my brain. Gah.

In the meantime, little Gabe is obsessed with Pokemon, and that’s JUST FINE. He can stay small, and obsessed with small child things, just as long as he wants.

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Trying so very, very hard to maintain a level of calm and predictability around this place, even as little complications creep in. Sam has a trip to one of the hippie-dippy middle schools tomorrow morning (and the other one next week), to shadow an older kid around the place and get a feel for things, in the ever-tense situation of “where the heck will I be next year?” Gabe is going through another bout of separation anxiety, with tears and pleas for hearts drawn on his hand before he leaves for school every morning. Swimming lessons are going, well, swimmingly for Sam, not so much for Gabe, though I may go broke on Pokemon cards, since they seem to motivate cooperation in Gabe more than anything else I’ve tried.

Sam’s officially signed up for a junior triathlon this summer. I took him with me to an expo this weekend, where he tried on a pair of little tri shorts and was immediately struck with a rip-roaring case of Quaker-level appalled modesty. Too short! Too tight! Not in public! We ran into a church friend a few minutes later, a man who does tris, and he tried to encourage Sam to “just do your thing, and nobody’s going to care what you’re wearing!” A friend of the man was there, and he offered to sell us a pair of knee-length jammers he’d bought for his grandson that hadn’t been worn; Sam seemed almost okay with that, so I agreed.

Carl, our friend, handed them off to us last night, and Sam tried them on in his room. For a moment, there was a strong sense of

So, I hear there’s a football game this weekend. Since there are no Mountaineers or Packers involved, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t care less. You?

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So we were in the car later, and Gabe started chattering about it. “And I think you need to have a body to have a real funeral, right, Mom?”

“Well, not necessarily. What if somebody drowned, and they couldn’t find the body? Their family could still have a funeral to say goodbye.”

“Okay, but Sam and [neighborhood friend] said ‘rest in peace.’ I don’t think that bird could rest in peace if it’s gone.”

I muttered, apparently not quietly enough, “It’s resting in pieces…”

Sam: “MOM! That’s awful! It was just a poor defenseless bird!”

Gabe, without a pause, replied, “You don’t know it was defenseless. Maybe it just lost!”

I swam today! Been waiting on my shoulder to heal properly enough to allow me to swim for a long time, and now I can do a breaststroke without more than occasional small twinges when I lose form! Still can’t do a crawl without pain, but I’m just happy to be back in the water. It brightened my whole morning.

Eric’s medical prep peaks tonight. I don’t intend to get into details, except to say that we both snorted when we read the section of the instructions that referred to me as Eric’s “responsible adult.” So, anyway, keep him in your (vague) thoughts for tonight and tomorrow. Poor guy.

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Among other things making me feel decrepit and ancient, we had the second middle school orientation. I don’t feel quite as frantic as I did when we were struggling to keep Sam out of his home elementary school; this middle school, although huge and with a reputation toward conform-or-be-bullied, sort of has the flavor of my own middle school: tons of what we used to call “related arts” classes (cooking, shop, technology, etc.), lots of extracurriculars, and a brief lunch period that seems to rely heavily on pizza. (Seriously, the teacher discussing lunch mentioned the pizza no less than five times within two minutes, including the “special pizza” on Fridays.) Part of me wants to believe that with a student population so large, there will have to be other boys like Sam around to, I dunno, share the load of being goofy and frequently strange. I mean, hey, I ran into an old friend there with whom I hadn’t spoken in a couple of years, and she’s nervous about her son going there, since he, too, tends to be the short, skinny kid who doesn’t fit into the group. Maybe Sam won’t be so alone?

Still crossing my fingers for Hippie School #1 or #2 (I visited the second one, and it turns out to be a smaller version of the first charter school in most ways). I get good feelings about Sam fitting in well in those. Heck, everybody I tell who knows Sam agrees. But not going to get my hopes up too high; there are only 75 spots at HS#1 and 50 at HS#2. (Joy, I’d have no problem home-schooling Gabe, but I can’t see it working with Sam. Maybe he’s too much like me; I have enough trouble just getting through a single work session with him. I’ve been having him use Khan Academy to help with some math issues, and for some reason, he takes it as a insult to his pride whenever I so much as glance over his shoulder. Mom is NOT ALLOWED. )

We finally have snow. I’m already over it.

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Told Mom I was going to make this shirt. She could have one, too, I said, since it affects her like it affects me; obviously, if I’m old enough to be sitting in a gymnasium for a freaking middle school orientation, then she, as my mother, must be ancient.

But for real. This kid isn’t old enough for middle school!

Right? And obviously this girl isn’t old enough to have a kid old enough to go to middle school…

…shut up.

(Oh, the memory; she plays cruel, cruel tricks.)

Anyway, it was a very nice middle school, if I have to send my kid off to the dark and horrible place that middle school holds in the recesses of my recollections. This one is a charter school, and it’s all alternative thinking, and no bells, and random dog in the hallway, and calling teachers by their first names. Sam would probably love it and thrive there, once he got past the initial bump of realizing that he would have to be more of his own boss. Then again, it’s a very competitive lottery, so I’m not getting my hopes up, and I’m trying to discourage him from counting his chickens, too. The orientation for his home middle school is tomorrow night, and maybe it won’t be so bad…maybe all those police calls for fighting are, y’know, exaggerated in the newspaper…(somebody hold me!)

So, say Sam doesn’t make it into the hippie-dippy middle school, and my little free spirit becomes a target for bullies at the home school. There are other options, too. Another charter school, from which I’m waiting to hear back. Maybe the Christian school, though it’s private and expensive. And maybe the home school wouldn’t be so bad, after all; some people are reassuring me that it’s not. Demons always seem to rear their heads more vividly in your rear-view mirror than they do through the windshield. He’ll probably be fine wherever he goes…probably.

Man, do I wish I was sending Gabe with him. Not wishing Gabe’s life into fast-forward, of course, but if ever there was a brother willing to step up and defend his brother against all comers, it’s that one, bless him. But they won’t be in school together again after this year – unless, of course, they get into one of the charter schools, which are sixth through twelfth grades. Another reason to keep fingers crossed!

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On the other hand, we did get to that basketball camp, and Gabe is in love. Love, love, love. He’s decided that he wants to be on a basketball team NOW, and since we grabbed a basketball from the toy store when we were out spending Christmas gift cards, he’s been dribbling it all over the house, demonstrating his Mad Skillz, yo. I mean, he’s still very much a seven-year-old beginner, but as far as he’s concerned, he’s Michael Jordan. (Sam participated and had fun, but he wasn’t as taken by the sport as his brother. He wanted to get back home and wire things. I kid you not, yesterday he and Eric built a freaking theremin with his electricity set.)

But then Gabe’s ear started throbbing, and he burst into a monster fever last night as he wailed, so we took him into our bed and cuddled him throughout the night until we could get him seen by our wonderful doctor this morning. He feels much better now, thankfully, and the doctor gave him her blessing to attend basketball camp tonight if he’s feeling well (he’s not coughing or sneezing, thankfully), so he’s happy. Hopefully, tonight will go better than last night; nighttime is always the hardest for him.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

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Low-key sort of day. Goose is in the oven – yes, it should have been for Christmas, but when I started to prep it yesterday, one of the initial instructions said to “scald and dry it,” which involved a 24-hour rest period afterward – and quite a lot of Eric’s prized “schmaltz” has already been collected from it. The kids spent a good amount of time destroying various things on their video games this morning, and now they’ve switched over to build mode, having unboxed their electrical sets. (I’ve teased them that when they get all that figured out, they can repair the poorly wired light switch in the upstairs hallway.) Amazing; I don’t understand a lick of it, beyond “must go in a complete circle.” Gabe knows more than I do at this point.

I wanted to get to the gym today, but I’m waiting on a call back about a program happening there for kids later this afternoon; if there’s space available for the kids, I’ll just go work out then. Hope there is. These holidays result in a sudden decrease in regularly scheduled and enforced large-motor-skill time that aggression builds up pretty quickly. I’ve taken to sending them out for runs around the block when they start going for each others’ throats. (Gabe, naturally, has embraced this idea; Sam has a horror of it.) Another session might be approaching soon, from what I’m now overhearing. Maybe I can con convince Sam to take another try on his Ripstik; he was frustrated yesterday by being unable to hop right on and ride, so he decided it was “too cold” and came in after a few minutes.

Goose is done. Smells awesome…

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(For the record, Skylanders is in the basement, wrapped and ready to go after he’s in bed Christmas Eve. )

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The PT actually scolded me a little at the last appointment, telling me to grab some “me time.” Well, ordinarily, that’s my run, but my knee is still grouchy. Had an MRI that showed just a little superficial swelling, and they said I could run “as tolerated,” but since I know I could easily “tolerate” myself into a major injury, I’m still being stingy with the mileage. Makes me grumpy to look at running logs of other JFK participants and see how quickly they bounced back.

At least I’m mostly done holiday shopping,  except for a couple of things…including for Eric. Is it me, or does shopping for a spouse gift get harder every year?

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One thing puke has going for it, though, over other forms of illness: total disambiguity. It’s not like a sore throat or headache, or even a cough. Throwing up means No School, with no room for subjectivity. Sam’s looking actually pretty healthy right now, playing Legos and being talkative, despite admitting that his stomach still hurts a bit, and if it hadn’t been for the undeniable evidence of illness, I’d be waffling over whether or not he ought to be at a desk right now. But puke is puke. No choice involved, so I feel mental relief on that end.

It’s easier that it’s Sam, of course. Not that I’d wish illness on either of my kids, but Sam is completely blasé about it. Gabe is my drama child; Sam takes what comes with some mild complaint, but doesn’t flail and scream. That’s my child; if you can’t change what is, well, then there’s no point thinking any further about it. (“Man, I hope my stomach stops hurting by lunchtime,” he says, and that’s the height of his frustration.) Gabe…well, I’ll get my chance to experience that side of things soon, I expect; Eric’s out of town, after all, so LET THE LORD OF CHAOS RULE.*

And now Sam’s making something involving rubber bands. I can’t wait to see this.

Gabe was unsure about heading off to school without Sam – the bus makes him nervous when he doesn’t have his brother on it with him – so I sketched a little angel on the back of his hand, which made him smile again. This is a child who likes something at which he can glance occasionally throughout the day, something tangible and reassuring. He was the one who required a heart drawn on the back of his hand, or often both hands, for weeks when he started kindergarten, so that he could stem the flow of homesick tears. Sam, Mr. “Take It as it Comes,” required no such thing. I wonder if his transition to middle school next year will be as seamless. Hope so, but middle school…man, I still get shudders.

Keep you fingers crossed that I don’t catch what Sam’s got. I don’t know which would be worse, Gabe or me, since at least if I stay healthy, I can keep us in fresh blankets and bowls.

*I never did finish that series. Bugged me when I found out Jordan had no plans to come to a conclusion of the story so long as folks were buying the books. Gah.

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Should get my toenails tattooed back on. I’ll bet there’re a lot of nerve endings in nailbeds, though. Hmmmm.

Here, have a picture of the ornaments my children made at the company Christmas party. A snowman and a star. I’ll bet you’ll never guess who made what…

Bonus: their letters to Santa.

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– It’s good when the forgetful child is old enough that, say, when he forgets until the morning before school to tell you that he needs an all-disposable lunch, you can stick a couple of bucks in his hand, point him toward the corner store, and say, “Run.”

– Gabriel informs me that his class is making Christmas ornaments with clay, and he’s opted to make a dreidel. Combine this with how, since he can’t draw ordinary stars, he’s been scribbling Stars of David on everything lately, and I wonder if we’re going to end up in an interesting conversation with a confused teacher one of these days. (No, we’re not Jewish.)

– Second PT appointment this morning. I ran yesterday for the first time since JFK, and within a few miles I determined that the shoulder tolerates running, but the knee is dealing with both the bruise and ITBS. Ow! Luckily, it looks like using the foam roller doesn’t put too much strain on my shoulder, either. Freaked myself out reading everybody’s reports online about how their shoulder injury absolutely required surgery, but then I reminded myself that these were dedicated swimmers and triathletes (the only folks I could find discussing it in terms of endurance athletics), and I don’t need to be able to swim hard for miles.

– Tree is up. The boys were both very gungo-ho about that this year, for the first time taking over a major role in decorating it. Nice ages, this holiday! I barely had to do much ornament hanging at all, since they both dove headlong into the boxes and started hanging stuff all over. But, being boys – and strange ones at that – it got weird quickly. Gabe gathered all the wooden Santas and had them stage battles with each other. Sam started perching cars on the ends of branches. Then they both pretended that the ornaments were terrified of being “hanged” on the tree, and I heard a jingle-bell football player squeaking frantically, “Don’t hang me! I’m Aaron Rodgers’ son! And I’m too young!” I’ve said it before: boys are weird.

- Eric heads for Germany again here in a few weeks. So much fun – for him, that is. For us, it’s decidedly less so. But I’m grateful he has such a good job with a stable company, and he enjoys the travel, so I’m happy he gets to do it. Wish he’d blog about it or something, so I could enjoy it vicariously through more than a few camera phone pictures. Some of us have never left the country, other than a brief childhood sojourn across the border to the other side of Niagara Falls.

Gotta get dressed and head out. Does anybody know anything about Holidailies this year?

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Here’s the thing: the boys elected, when asked their opinion, to have a later Thanksgiving dinner today than an earlier one, so the meal preparation has been happening through the day, leaving me to wander through the kitchen, trying not to snack (oh, pearl onions; you seduce my heart completely) but contenting myself with sips of a lovely Shiraz while watching Eric in action. He says I get this way when I’ve had a few too many of those sips, but I’ll contend that this level of maudlin has been reached not via grape, but by watching the man I love in action, serving his family in this very special way, hour after hour.

He said he was going to “wing it” this year, leaving behind fancy preparations and complicated menu options. A roast turkey, with a simple stuffing; green beans with mini potatoes; pearl onions in a cream sauce; mashed potatoes; cranberry sauce; giblet gravy. A homemade pumpkin pie to finish. Knowing that my version of “winging it” would probably have involved StoveTop and Sara Lee as guests, I grinned as I watched him positively dance around the kitchen, juggling pots and pans as everything came into form. He stumbled at the giblets, momentarily caught off guard trying to identify one from another (apparently, the liver joins the gravy well after the other organ meats), but he figured it out quickly. The pie was completed soonest, a humbly perfect pie that sits cooling on the entertainment center as we wait for the rest of the meal.

This is Thanksgiving then, and though I’ve been waxing poetic about the food, that’s not what I’m saying. Thanksgiving is in the feeling I get when I see this man, this man I love, working hard for hours to please us in any way that he can. Thanksgiving is in the warmth in my heart as I see him brush flour from his pants, red-faced from the heat, not slowing a moment as he spins from stove to counter to table and back. I remember that he started cooking when I was so heavily pregnant with Gabe, so tired from chasing a toddler around all day, and he stepped up to help, though it wasn’t something at which he’d worked much before that. My husband, the man of many talents: he works so hard, and seeing him work is to see art in action.

Okay, so I have been enjoying the wine.

Thanksgiving is such a perception-based holiday. It’s hard to deny that we are so much more well-off than so many people in this country, simply based on the way our table begins to groan under the weight of the dishes piling onto it. I’m not blind to that, and I feel sincere gratitude that neither of my children has known hunger. At the same time, I know that the real gift here isn’t the food. It’s the love behind it.

Thank you, God.

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Never done the whole “Go Go” airplane wireless thing before. I’m in the air, somewhere over…oh, who knows. Not Wisconsin anymore, probably, and not yet Maryland. On my way, and on a very uneventful flight, so far.

Sam was scared of me flying. Gabe was terrified of me falling off a mountain during the race. Nobody is allowed to give him any more scary race details, at least until after I’ve finished running; he was trying so hard to convince me to find another, less steep, path off the trail tomorrow.

Anyway. What time is it? Phone says quarter after seven, but I don’t know if the time zone has changed yet. Let’s just say we’re about 24 hours away from race time, give or take, and all’s as well as I could reasonably expect. Cross your fingers, wish me luck, and pray that this pilot is good at landing – because a crash right now would seriously torque me off.

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It seems that Gabe takes his holidays very seriously. He has been grousing for a couple of weeks, to anybody who’ll listen, that we’ve jumped straight from Halloween to Christmas, bypassing Thanksgiving. When we heard carols on the radio, he growled and muttered angrily; when he saw Christmas lights, he glared fiercely. Things belong in order, you see, and there’s simply no excuse for getting overeager and skipping around. (Well, except for one neighbor down the street, whose front yard is currently decorated with jack o’lanterns, wooden turkeys, and sleighs. By his reaction, Gabe seems graciously willing to allow those neighbors leeway to exist in their clear cases of dementia, bless-their-little-hearts.)

Anyway, we try to avoid confronting him with Christmas trappings for now, because if there’s anything you don’t want, it’s to get Gabe up on a soapbox; he doesn’t like to abandon it once he’s there, and if you don’t listen to him, the harangue grows personal. Simply better to fall in line, and it’s not as though we disagree, really – just a level of vehemence. I don’t decorate until after Thanksgiving, anyway, by personal choice.

Yesterday morning, we discovered a little of why Gabe might be into Thanksgiving so much this year. Eric was getting dressed for work, and he mentioned that he needed some new work shirts. “Maybe you’ll get some for Christmas,” Gabe said, then, “Or maybe the Great Turkey Spirits will bring you some for Thanksgiving!”

So that took some discussion. I’m pretty sure he gets it now, but I’m not sure he understands why both Eric and I screamed, “DUDE!” in unison. I mean, Spirit of Christmas, Turkey Spirits…they all sound pretty much the same to a literal-minded seven-year-old. (And (and do not read this part out loud, Carrie, if Gabe convinces you to read this entry to him before he gets much older!) I get the feeling he’s going to “figure out” Santa sooner rather than later, anyway. Sam’s still invested, hook, line, and sinker, thanks to the whole NORAD thing, but Gabe has been muttering that his friend Danny says Santa is just your mom and dad. He says he hopes Danny “starts believing soon,” but we’ll see what happens this year when Gabe starts watching us all with hawk eyes; he already says he’s planning to put up a hidden camera “to show Danny”…)

This year, I plan to do almost all of our shopping at local and small stores. No large chains or big box stores if I can help it. Both boys are on board, especially since the beloved downtown toy store went out of business earlier this year. That still chafes.

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Silence. I peek at him sitting on the couch, staring blankly, his Bible in his lap. “Oh. That ‘Jude.’ I was talking The Beatles.” More staring with the suggestion of long-suffering.

I went toward the dining room, and he sighed. “You’re going to play them on the computer now, aren’t you?” he said. Apparently, I’m predictably pedantic. But why fight that at which you excel?

“Yes, I am,” I said, hitting “play” on the tune that started the discussion. “The Beatles are pretty darn important, you know. They influenced so many other musicians, as well as the entire sixties culture!”

“Music culture is boring,” he quipped, “except for Ke$ha.” I whipped around and caught a twinkle in his eye, which saved his life. I faked a swat at him, and he cowered in mock fear while Gabe laughed and repeated the funny phrase to himself.

The song changed to “Let It Be,” and Sam frowned. “Did they sing ‘Rockin’ Robin’?” I almost swatted him again before I realized he wasn’t yanking my chain.

“The Beatles, Sam! Not The Jackson 5! Nothing alike – not even a little! The Jacksons sang about the Robin…” I played that intro, then, “and The Beatles did “Blackbird.” I played that. “Two different birds; don’t confuse them!”

“Oh. But they did ‘Yellow Submarine, though, right?”

“Yes.”

We listened longer. Next came “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” Gabe said, “I actually like this song. Wait, is it still The Beatles? Then it’s boring.”

Sam asked, “So, did they have guitars back then?” I winced and played some Renaissance guitar music to prove a point. Sam rolled his eyes.

“That’s different,” he said, the twinkle glinting again. “That just sounds like ‘MagiQuest.’”

Y’all, don’t sympathize with my kids when I tease them; they give back in spades.

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Gabe’s “reluctance” (yes, let’s call it that) to take his medicine continues. Tonight, flipping Sam took over the role of cajoler, and that worked about as well as it does for Eric or me; Sam pushed hard with the “I’ll play video games with you if you take it,” and eventually Gabe caved. I can’t believe we have to keep this up for about another week…

Spent a chunk of time this afternoon annotating an elevation chart of the JFK course with aid stations, cut-off times, and possible paces. Obsessing? Who, me? I’d say it’s how I’m staying sane, but I’m pretty sure sanity is a realm I left long ago. (A cut-off I didn’t miss.)

Sleepy now.

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As I’ve said before, what’s the point of having kids, if not to mess with them on a regular basis?

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But that was grace from above for other reasons. Gabe spent all of last night, from about nine o’clock on, in agony from a raging ear infection. I gave him pain killers, which gave him periods of slight relief during which he slept fitfully, but when they’d wear off, he’d wail and gnash his teeth again. We kept him in our bed, so as to avoid disturbing Sam too much, which meant that his every thrash met my body with a solid thump. Eric took him to Urgent Care this morning and got him some antibiotics…along with a set of his own, earned when, while trying to reassure Gabe about the pulse-ox monitor, he and the nurse discovered that he was a few breaths away from a horrid case of walking pneumonia. Now they’re both in bed, languishing. My heart breaks for them (and my head whispers that I might want to wear a mask for a while…); they look miserable.

Related to nothing, I got a pair of Stabilyx tights – a gift from Eric for my birthday – and wore them for the first time today. It was an experience just getting them on the first time. “Put the X around your knee,” the instructions said, and there I was, huffing and puffing to get it to my…ankle. Wow. After much exertion, they seemed to fit all right, and I’m not all that sore post-run, but I don’t know how sore I was expecting to be, anyway; time will tell if they’re truly the magic so many people claim they are!

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Of Sam, since toddlerhood, I’ve often joked that he was just waiting for the perfect militant cause to which he could attach himself. He’d shriek to the heavens when he saw litter on the ground; he’d rail against the system when he heard about bullies or cheaters. Now, apparently, he’s been assigned a class project – the details of which are sort of sketchy to me; maybe a position paper? – and his topic is whaling. Oh, my. He found his current cause.

He and his partner, a young lady with similar passionate feelings, are getting more and more outraged with every bit of information they uncover…and their plans to “fix” the situation don’t appear to follow conventional paths. “So, working through the system isn’t your style?” I lamely said this morning, when he told me that his friend planned to use pepper bombs against the whalers, as “red herrings.”

(“Yeah, our teacher taught us that phrase,” he said, proud of himself.)

No, it’s apparently much more his style to go all rogue here, with stealth ships and weapons. He is morally disgusted by the images he’s seen (sidenote: I think I’d have been a little more wary about letting a bunch of ten-year-olds go searching the internet for images of whale slaughter…), and moderation isn’t something he’s really developed yet. So now I get to walk a fine line between letting him do his own homework and trying, for the love of Mike, to get him to please consider the ramifications of joining the Youth Ecoterrorist Brigade.

Meanwhile, Gabe’s education is following a more ordinary path, though he’s regularly cracking me up with it. He prefers to work extremely independently, with the result that some of his assignments look as though they were penned by Nell:

Click to embiggen.

This is an older paper, and in case you can’t decipher it, he was talking about birds in a tree. Yes, “brs” in a “teyu.” Now he’s getting a little better at the phonics, but he still surprises us. This next was from a “Day of the Dead” assignment, where he chose to write about his late Grandma Richmond:

Well, sure! Who doesn’t love to eat some fresh, juicy Florida “oinchjis”? Or maybe have a glass of “oinch” juice?

The spelling isn’t the only creative thing he does, though. From a math paper. Note: the questions he missed were intended to be related to the one above:

Instead of doing the math, deciding whether the numbers could fit logically into the comparison provided, Gabe went straight for practicality. No, Luz couldn’t paint eleven rocks; it would take too long. I guess Luz had other things to do. On the other hand, two rocks would fit neatly into Luz’s busy schedule, since those would take only a “hoat” (short?) time.

Oh, Gabe. You don’t disappoint.

(I didn’t ask what was hanging from the belly of the…fire beast? My best guess is a saddle or a weapon, not what you’re thinking. For all his craziness, Mr. Gabe has a strong streak of Puritan-like modesty in that arena. )

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November, finally/already. This whole year has been just bizarre, feeling in turns hurried and crammed, and yet creeping and slow. I don’t think I’ll miss it, though you’ll have to forgive me if I revisit that thought after finishing JFK. Could be a redeeming factor (or otherwise, which I choose not to consider right now). I think I just want to get to 2012 and see if it can be a more consistent year – though I’ll also press my luck and hope for consistently good. Don’t I just want everything?

Halloween was the same mix of strange. On the one side, both boys were in miraculous agreement as to when they wanted to finish trick-or-treating, without one howling at the moon to go home while the other begged for “just one more block.” On the other hand, their agreement stemmed from the fact that rain was blowing in our faces and wind was turning our umbrellas inside-out. Then they happily agreed that they wanted to go to a particular restaurant (a rare non-fighting event!), which was supposed to be letting kids eat free in costume. Well, apparently, that offer was good for actual Halloween night only, and our town’s trick-or-treat was happening the night before. I guess the restaurant got off lucky on that bargain; don’t know too many folks who would have been willing to re-costume the kids for the next night. Oh, well.

Gabe, by the way was “The Dread Pirate Roberts” from The Princess Bride – a choice which, while awesome, would have been obscure enough amongst the first-grade circle, but he made it more so by introducing himself all day long as “Wesley.” Sam went as a World War II flying ace, and Eric said people kept asking him if he was “The Aviator.” He just blinked.

(“Wesley” was wearing a laced black shirt beneath his leather jacket, but it was too cold to forgo the coat. Sam’s coat was part of his costume, so he was thrilled to not need adaptations.)

Gotta go get them from the bus stop!

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What put it into my head was that last night, we were doing our Bible lesson, and both boys are working to memorize Psalm 23. Sam’s pretty much got it, but Gabe…well, he gets the gist of the chapter, but the words are still elusive:
“He makes me lie on the grass and drink the water.”
“He sets a table with presents in front of my enemies.”
“You fill my head with oil.”

Last night, he got so frustrated that he declaimed the whole thing, yelling, “He leads me down the paths! Of righteousness! for HIS NAME’S SAKE!” and he reminded me so much of Homer (“Take thy beak from out my heart…”) that I couldn’t help myself.

They’re so funny, as they gather more and more tropes from which to draw their humor and references. I won’t spoil the surprise for Halloween, but I’m particularly pleased with Gabe’s choice of costume. Sam tried to base his costume choice around a toy gun that struck his fancy, but I drew a line; for one thing, he wouldn’t be allowed to take said gun to school, anyway, and for another, there are way better ways to choose costumes than by saying, “What will match this cheapo plastic Uzi, probably solidly constructed from recycled Happy Meal toys?” So we went head-to-head, and we came up with a costume that’s slightly more creative, while still allowing him to indulge his fascination in all things bang-bang-shoot-’em-up.

Sam’s trying so hard lately, struggling with the whole exit from young kidhood, that I hate, er, shooting him down like that. (Ow, tomato.) His math tutoring is going better than he expected it to, now that he’s seeing that the tutor is a fun young guy, not an extra taskmaster to please. A while ago, we had removed certain privileges, particularly online ones, and he’s trying to bargain to get them back in exchange for bringing up his grades, so I’m interested to see how this goes. In the meantime, though, I see signs of stress weighing on him; he’s becoming rather obsessive, for example, about making sure the last thing we say to each other at night and before he leaves in the morning is “Good night[/bye], I love you.” If I dare insert anything after saying that, it has to be repeated, as though I’ve negated the thought. The same holds for his interactions with Gabe and Eric. But he seems to be biting his cuticles less, so I suppose it’s a tradeoff…

Gabe has discovered Pokémon. ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, they’re off to have their heads filled for the day (with more book larnin’, not oil, Gabe), and as soon as I finish this cup of coffee (and the one after it), I’ll be running four miles in the rain. This is my last “peak week,” and then it’s taper time! Hopefully, this week beats me up less than last, though I’ve technically got more miles; my “Birthday Run” on Friday, at the Ice Age Trail, absolutely annihilated my quads, and they’re still a bit achey. I’ve got so much KT Tape up and down my legs, in various colors, that I look like a battle diagram. It’s sexy. Love the stuff, though. I wondered if it was just psychosomatic, but the times that I’ve removed the tape and delayed putting it back on, the aches that had faded have begun to return quickly, so I trust that it’s doing its job.

Still haven’t picked my own Halloween costume. What should I be?

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“So, how does it feel to be seven?”
“I don’t feel different yet. I still feel six.”
“Well, what’s the difference?”
“When I’m seven, I’ll feel all excited and hyper. I won’t feel seven until I’ve blown out my candle.”
“Well,” I yawned, “Then you won’t be seven until late tonight, because you’re not having cake for breakfast.”
“Just kidding!” he yelped, bouncing up off my pillow. “I feel seven now!”

And just like seven years ago, I started my day snuggling with my baby in the big bed. Of course, this time he was much more chattery and far less change-me-nownowNOW. But the wispy hair and the sparkly eyes are the same, as well as the complete unwillingness to be anything less than the center of attention.

He’s crazy, this one, but I think it’s simply impossible to get through a day with Gabe without laughing out loud at least once or twice. He’s a whirlwind of the unexpected; he’s a dervish of emotions. Even at the worst, most volatile moments, so long as you don’t “feed the fire” (a lesson we’ve all learned and continue to learn), he’ll change directions within minutes, apologizing sincerely and trying to make up for his outburst of anger. He’s pure life without a filter.

I could write a book, just of his hilarious takes on the world around him. Last night, in his bedtime prayers, he thanked God “…for mankind, and also for ladykind.” He says that when he grows up, he wants to be a dancer (“I’m comfortable with my dancing!” he says, then, when Sam snickers, “I need to get a new brother.”) and a crossing guard. He loves school; when I picked him up for swimming yesterday, he said goodbye by name to darn near every kid we walked past, then said, with emphasized casual swagger, “Those are my peeps.” In the morning, he vacillates between playing with Legos and doing bona fide front planks on the living room floor (because he wants “washboard abs”).

To think, this was the child who came into the world in the middle of the night with a resounding roar. I don’t think he’s stopped roaring yet. Happy birthday, Gabe. You’ll always be my wild one.

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I’m running the 6-hour in two days, during which I hope to cover the 50K distance called for in the plan. As things stand right now, I am the only person signed up to do the 6-hour time during the event (everybody else is signed up for the 12 and 24-hour times), so…I’ll “win”? Right. Go me. I’m just keeping my eyes on the immediate finish, because looking ahead of that point is Too Much. When I posted my last entry, I made a critical error; next Saturday, I have to run 24 miles, not 10. When I realized that, I felt like crying, just because it was such a shock to the system. I got over it, and it’ll be okay, but…darn, man.

Everything else is progressing as it will. Sam is handling school okay, with the exception of math, but we’re exploring ways to help that (a teenager from our church will be tutoring him once a week, for one). He switched to trombone instead of trumpet, and he’s all excited over a new unit on architecture they just began in class. Gabe is chugging along, enjoying schoolwork and activities, except for swimming – that’s going poorly at the moment for him, but I have faith we’ll have another upswing sooner or later. He hates the water temperature most of all, despite wearing a shirt over his torso to help it. He’s turning seven in a few weeks, so that’s a big obsession for him, too.

Eric has the patience of a saint, putting up with all of our ups and downs. I’ve promised him less chaos from my end, at least, by mid-November. JFK is only about a month away now, and that just never stops getting freakier.

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Good thing I’m recovered; I had a 22-miler this morning that I definitely didn’t want to miss or reschedule. I started at 4 AM, running on the bike trail, and it was almost surreally peaceful; I switched off my flashlight after a few minutes and just ran through the darkness, soaking it in.

Anyway, so much for any family activities today, but that’s fine. Gabe’s perfectly happy to stage elaborate play scenes with his miniature figures – a little more subdued than normal, but still entertaining – and Sam’s actually doing homework without being forced into it, simply to have something to do other than focus on how miserable he feels, poor thing. Eric’s eating lunch, and then I’ll bet he’ll spend some time resting, too. Another reason I’m glad to be recovered; I don’t mind at all running errands and whatnot to allow the rest of the family time to get better.

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Somebody hopped off the bus with a plan this afternoon.

Now, we’ve had a few false starts with regards to music and my older son. Violin came to a tragic end when he couldn’t handle the idea of having (::shudder::) people adjusting his fingers for him, and he fought me every time I mentioned practicing; even lessons with the teacher, who was clearly an Educational Ninja, couldn’t resurrect his willingness to try. Choir was a a let-down for him, since it meant giving up all his recesses in the end, not simply the single one the teacher had said would be enough for the group. I don’t blame him for not wanting to do that again. And our church musicals made him uncomfortable, standing in the spotlight, so he’s the sole junior member of the scenery crew for those now.

There is a difference this time, though: with the violin, the choir, and the musicals, I have to admit to being the propelling factor. Well, can you blame me? (Don’t answer that.) I mean, music was my life for so long, how could I help but hope my son might want to share it with me? I didn’t actually force him (except for the church plays, since his age group at class is primarily based around the staging of plays for much of the year, and there’s no other class for him), but I didn’t hide my desire that he’d give them a try…and he did…for a while.

This time, I thought I’d learned, so after some initial asking whether the band started this year and whether he’d try it (“No!” he said “I don’t want to give up my recesses again!”), I let it go. Then, today, he jumped down the bus steps and said, “I want to play the trumpet!”

Okay, so I know the shtick. The band director goes around, demonstrates all the instruments for the kids and makes it sound like being in the band is the rockstar life. I can even remember my own elementary school band director doing the same thing. He let us try all the mouthpieces, and the only one on which I could make a sound that I liked was the flute, and so there I went for the next ten years before switching primary focus to piano (mostly based on instructor preference, but also on practicality; a piano is a much more useful instrument for an aspiring composer, especially with so much being done electronically). Apparently, Sam’s teacher didn’t go so far as to let them try the mouthpieces yet, but Sam liked the sound of the trumpet best.

Well, that was Eric’s primary instrument, so we happen to have a couple of them in the basement. Reasoning that, even if it goes south again, at least we can mitigate cash outlay, I pulled out some mouthpieces for Sam to try. He did a couple of times, puffing out his cheeks like Dizzy. “It TICKLES!” he yelled. After failing to get a good buzz after a handful of attempts, he sighed and said, “I guess it’s not for me.”

“What?!” I laughed. “Did you think you were going to be Louis Frigging Armstrong on your first try?” Gabe barked with laughter, and Sam shrugged and said, “Well, yeah.” At least he’s honest. I told him of my fledgling attempts and failures, and he seemed cheered.

I am not getting my hopes up again. I am not going to push it. If he wants to try this, I’m supporting him, because music education is so very important, and I want him to have every benefit I can give him. But I’ve seen what pushing brings. Time will have to tell, as it always does.

(Gonna suggest he puts down “percussion” or “flute” in the “Second Instrument Choice” blank, though. The latter will also save money, since we’ve got that downstairs, too, and the former is less likely than any of the above to hammer on his sensory issues. No spit valves there, you see. )

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Somebody who’s done this, please reassure me on the point? ::Frantically re-reading Running Through the Wall again::

School is progressing normally; due to Labor Day weekend, they’re only on their third day of school today. Gabe’s got his first test coming up at the end of the week, a reading test (small “sight words” that he should be able to recognize without sounding them out), and he’s a little nervous about that. Sam has his laissez-faire attitude going on again, and I hope that doesn’t extend again toward the bringing home of homework, but we’ll see. His new teacher, new to the school, said that he’ll be keeping us up to date on missing assignments (not that they won’t be marked down or even not given credit at all), so I hope that’s reliable.

Labor Day weekend itself was fun. We hit the closing weekend of the Renaissance fair, a bonfire with friends, and had lots of time to just relax and let sore muscles heal. Wait, maybe that was just me. It’s a running step-back week (FINALLY), and my body is thanking me profusely now!

Getting my hair cut now. (Might just get ‘em all cut. Ba-dump-bump.)

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SAM: “I have a very funny teacher who gives us a lot of time to read. I was very nervous at first, because I didn’t know how to act as a fifth grader, but then I got over my nerves and felt better. Two of my friends were in my class – well, three, actually – and I can’t wait to learn more in school.”

GABE: “I was scared and very nervous, because it was my first day, and I might not make any friends. But it was fun – I don’t know why I was scared! And my teacher is very nice. My favorite thing was when we were doing a scavenger hunt in my room. You have to find a friend that’s wearing red, and a friend that’s a boy, and a friend that’s a girl. And we had Spanish. I only cried at lunch, because they told us to sit where we wanted, and I sat down, and my whole class sat really far away, and I was scared, and they wouldn’t let me move. But then it was okay.”

There were some major teardrops shining in Gabe’s eyes as he got onto the bus this morning, but he had two Sharpie hearts drawn onto his wrists as a reminder of how much I love and was missing him (one wasn’t enough; he demanded one for both arms), and that seemed to help a little. Sam, meanwhile, didn’t show a blink of either excitement or nervousness until he looked around and realized that he was going to be the oldest one at the bus stop this year. Somehow, that brought it all home for him, and he was filled with the “importance of his position.”

For my part, I got in my run, and then I settled down and into the inordinate amount of paperwork required to send kids to school these days. Exciting times, I know. (RIP, acres of trees.) The boys were home, climbing off the bus (on the wrong side of the dangerous intersection, which had better not be the way things will be all year, or I won’t be the only disgruntled parent at our stop) before I could blink much, both full of stories and relieved that everything looks optimistic for a pleasant year. Hurray!

This may well be the last year they share a school. That feels momentous to me.

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I read to him, though early bedtimes often mean no story, and I tucked him in; he smiled with his eyes closed and melted into my hand as it stroked his forehead. “Mom? Can we do this every night?”

“Well…seven o’clock is pretty early for bed, Sam, don’t you think? You might wind up waking earlier than you want to.”

“That might not be so bad, with school…”

And I came downstairs, feeling both warmed at the nice time I’d spent with Sam and guilty at the idea that perhaps I’d really been neglecting him. He’s been very prickly lately, snapping at people for no reason, deliberately provoking Gabe and starting fights, rude when asked to do things he doesn’t want to do. It’s hormonal, I know, and I’m sympathetic, but it’s all new to me, too. When a kid’s refrains have become “Nobody talk to me right now” and “I just want to be alone,” it’s hard to know when he means it literally and when he just doesn’t know how to handle the storm in his brain and body.

At his eye appointment, he confessed to the eye doctor (when asked whether he’s focusing well on written pages) that he’s been sneaking out of bed at night into the bathroom, to sit and read. No wonder he’s grouchy and red-eyed in the morning.

Gabe is demanding of individual attention at all times, and Sam is pushing us away – sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully – as he heads into his tweens. It’s too easy to accept that as the way things are, to cuddle Gabe close while letting Sam drift. I’d already been giving Sam more and more privacy (both in our home and, if it hasn’t been obvious, online), but then moments like last night happen, and I get smacked in the face with the realization that it’s the toddler years all over again, when they push away for independence, then come careening back in terror when they think they’ve gone too far.

Instead of the terrified return, though, the reaction is subtle and easier to miss. The slight clinging to my hand as I stroke his head in the dark…the suggestion of a bike ride…the request to sit next to me in a restaurant. If I don’t pick up on it, he lets it go so easily, so easily, and maybe next time it won’t even be there at all. This is how it happens, maybe. I guess it’s different for all of them, but maybe this is how my Sam grows up and away.

He’s so young for ten. That makes sense to people who have or work with kids; there are ten-year-olds who act their age and more, and then there are ten-year-olds who cling to their “little kid” years with their fingernails, trying so hard not to go on. Sam’s in the latter camp; only moving into “big kid” activities when the closest of his peers can convince him that it’s worth the exploration. He’s the boy who’ll happily carry a stuffed animal with him into the grocery store, oblivious to any strange looks he’ll receive; he’s the one who wanders through stores, looking for something shiny to hang around his own neck, looking startled and appalled when clerks try to suggest he might be shopping for a girlfriend. Knowing that about him, it’s easy to forget that time is passing so fast that none of us had better blink.

He starts fifth grade on Thursday. If you can believe that, you’re doing better than I am.

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There were eye drops involved. No coincidentally, there was screeching and red-faced struggling, as well. In his defense, halfway through the appointment, he did stop, unprompted, to say, “I’m sorry I said mean things.” That’s my Gabe: shoot first, apologize later. (And, also in his defense, Sam did corroborate his story that the drops stung.) The eye doctor was very gracious and said that, aside from the drops tantrum, Gabe did very well. He even refrained from saying “I told you so” when she told him he didn’t need glasses (he had insisted quite loudly that this was the case, as she stood over him with the eye drops)…though he did barely restrain the eye roll when she had asked him to tell her when the letters on the screen started to “turn all fuzzy.”

“I know what ‘blurry’ means,” he said, sounding slightly offended.

So, I think that’s all the body parts that need checked, cleaned, or trimmed before school starts next week, which is a good thing for my nerves. I can tell they’re really fraying, because I lost my temper and laid down the freaking law last night at dinner. Among other things on their plates was a tiny slice of grilled zucchini, and you’d have thought it was fresh excrement from their reactions. After one too many rude remarks from Sam, I made a decision: “That’s it! I have one more zucchini in the fridge, and it’s for dinner tomorrow! And I’m hitting the farmer’s market for more zucchini, and there’ll be zucchini at every dinner from now on until it gets eaten without a fuss!”

Anybody got any good zucchini recipes? I’m thinking a gratin, maybe…

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Perhaps Sam would have, too, but Gabe, the early riser, wanted Sam to get out of bed to help him with something this morning, so he prodded him awake with the temptation of one more full day of brotherly service. You know, in the hands of some older brothers, that could be a bad thing, but with Sam…I can see the attraction for Gabe. Sam hasn’t enslaved him – he’s knighted him. They’re outside now, where I can hear swordfighting lessons in progress.

I wish you could hear it, too. Some highlights:

“This isn’t a good idea, Sam.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not aiming at you; I’m aiming at your sword.”

“Go!” Crashcrashcrash!
“Ow! Gabe, I have to say ‘en garde’ first!”

“You need a better sword, I think.”
“And a shield!”

And now they just came clamoring inside. Gabe yelled, “Guess what, Mom? Sam made me a prince! Because I’ve learned how to use my environment against my opponent!” Yep, I can see the draw in being one’s brother’s servant, I guess…for a day.

EDIT: Oh dear.
“Sam, I don’t want to ride that down the hill.”
“You’ll stop at the bottom, then stab me. Let me finish tying it…”
“When do I jump off?”

I think The Queen Mother may need to step in now…

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We were watching the construction crew across the street demolish an old driveway. A forklift was loading slabs of concrete onto a pickup truck, where a couple of guys attacked them with sledgehammers to break them into smaller pieces. Gabe looked thoughtful.

“I’ve always wanted a sledgehammer,” he said. I asked him why. He eyed me. “It’s complicated,” he said, waving his hand.

Sam, meanwhile, terrifies me in other ways. Little Mr. Daredevil wasn’t technically breaking any rules as he whipped up and down the street on his bike, but with all the construction equipment (small stuff, but still), he was making me nervous. I told him to get on the sidewalk.

“But, Mom! You told me I wasn’t supposed to ride like that on the sidewalk, since this is a serious bike, not a toy!” Well, true. I told him it was just the equipment, so he obliged…and came blurring down the sidewalk, moments later, barely clearing Gabe and me as we stood there. I told him to slow down for sidewalk riding; he gave up and went inside. (I did suggest, before he did, that he go over to the bike trail, which interested him until I reminded him that, as it was an hour before bedtime, he couldn’t really go on any really long trail rides.)

Is my hair grey yet?

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The kids are being kids, which, well, duh. It’s the last couple of weeks of summer vacation, and they’re apparently all out of energy, except what they can expend in manic bursts as shouts at a computer screen or video game or each other. (Oh, yay, there they go again. “IT’S MY LEGO PIECE! GIVE IT BACK!” as though we don’t have giant plastic tubs overflowing with Legos. That one is special.) We did almost all the school supply shopping yesterday, with the exception of Sam’s oil pastels and erasable blue pens. Beyond the weird specificity of the latter, haven’t we all decided that erasable pens are pure evil by now? They smear, they blot, they don’t really erase anyway…and he already bought some black ones, also found on the list. Why do we need blue ones, too? What’s the bizarre importance, here?

Perhaps I’d mind less in a better mood. But you should have seen the epic tantrum Gabe threw when we couldn’t find them at our second stop yesterday, before I managed to make him understand that we didn’t need to go searching in another place that day. Of course, he was only expressing the frustration probably felt by every one of the parents packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow school supply aisles, but he was doing it with panache. And volume. And what we’ll call “interpretive dance,” so as to give his six-year-old pride a little break. Heck, I was hot and tired, too, so I can understand how his breaking point got smashed to bits there.

My ribs are still fiercely aching, and even my face still hurts some, usually when I forget about it and go to rest my cheek in my hand or put on moisturizer a little too slap-dashedly. Swimming on Monday morning was a failure from the get-go (had to use a kickboard for the entire workout, since stroking with my arms was agonizing), and I called the doctor afterward, who prescribed me some pain pills with instructions to call her if things didn’t improve after a while. Funny thing is, she wants me to take them at bedtime, but the pain is the worse when I wake. That’s when I need help; the first hour after getting out of bed, I’m creeping around like an old lady who can barely stand up without wincing. By bedtime, it’s not so bad; maybe being upright for that long just inures me to the pain or something. Who knows?

Need a cheer-up.

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One of the only “misses” on the trip was the Top Secret attraction, which Gabe was desperate to see, and which he begged and begged for us to go to, and which he happily pranced into…and which he and I had to flee through an emergency exit provided by the tour guide midway through, with Gabe howling in my ear, “THAT WAS HORRIFYING! Why would they SHOW ME that?! I’m going to be TERRIFIED FOR LIFE!” He even grabbed a little girl by the elbow, as she was crossing the parking lot with her parents, to say, “Just so you know, it’s really, really scary in there!” (As a footnote, when we left the Dells this afternoon after Gabe had exchanged an extremely tearful goodbye with his grandparents, he said, “Now we just need to go back to Top Secret! This moment is so bad, that would even cheer me up!”)

But that was the only down side, other than the occasional squabbling about whether we should be splashing in the water park or waving wands at Magiquest, or whether it ought to be the restaurant featuring paper moose antlers or model trains for dinner. That’s to be expected, and there were no catastrophes.

Well, I say “no catastrophes,” and that’s true, though I guess it did come close. I kept up with my running while I was there, and I saved my longest midweek run for a trail run at Mirror Lake. It was worth it; the views were incredible, and I had the whole trail to myself. I picked the one marked with the highest difficulty, a mountain bike trail, and it was very rolling, with plenty of steeper hills mixed in. No human souls, but plenty of wildlife; I shared the morning with wild turkeys, a doe with two fawns darting in front of me, and an adorable pitch-black squirrel that kept popping up. I was in a great mood right before mile four, when I passed a “Do Not Enter” sign; it made me giggle, thinking it really needed a pink ribbon tied to it (I guess I didn’t mention in the race report; the “course” was so rough that every time we saw a “Do Not Enter” or “Keep Out” sign, it was nearly always marked with a pink ribbon indicating that we needed to duck under any barrier and plow forward.)

So I was giggling about that, and my mind wandered for a crucial second, and a root jumped up and grabbed my toe. I took a hard fall to the ground, landing heavily on my rib cage and face. Ow. It took several long minutes for me to regain myself, just lying there, staring at the tree canopy, trying to breathe. After a while, I sat up and spat out big mouthfuls of mud, trying to see whether I’d broken anything really important; my hat had flown off my head and up the trail a ways, and I was a little worried I’d broken my face. My ribs were killing me, but my legs seemed okay, if scraped.

The last two miles were slow and painful, but, you know, you have to finish what you start, especially if you’re the only one on the trail and your car is at the end. Got back to the hotel and iced my face and ribs; happily, that kept my cheek from swelling up into my eye, but there’s still a shadow of a bruise there, and the ribs are pretty sore. My mother-in-law was a nurse, though, and she agreed that I probably didn’t need to go to the Urgent Care, since all they’d do is tell me to ice it and take ibuprofen. It’s not debilitating, just achy. Could have been a lot worse, I suppose.

Anyway, we’re back now, and there’s laundry to do and routines to resume. School starts in a few weeks, and I haven’t bought a single supply for that. Time to get cracking!

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ME: “…so you guys just go straight to the pool, and I’ll be in after I clean up, since I smell like a dead goat.”
GABE: “I know!”
ME: “Gabe! You’re not supposed to agree so fast. Say, ‘Why, Mother, you smell like nothing but the finest spring flowers.’”

There was a long pause, then…

GABE: “I can’t smell any flowers, just a sweaty goat. But I’m sure that’s not you!”

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“Bob,” he’s dubbed his temper. Yes, he gave it a name, and he views it as both the enemy and as part of himself that can’t really go away and maybe even shouldn’t, since it’s him. Pretty astute for a six-year-old. “Bob’s coming out again!” he yells in a panic. “I can’t control him this time!” He’s not trying to be funny, either.

Right now, we’re alternating between two different methods of dealing with Bob. The first is a code phrase, which he invented; if he comes to me and says “Tiny Cowboy!”, I’ve promised to drop whatever I’m doing and hug him hard until he feels more in control of things. I have no idea what “Tiny Cowboy” signifies, but that’s not the point. He feels freaked, and the hug helps him regroup.

The second method is a little more advanced, but he latched onto it. Basically, we drop to a seated cross-legged position, palms upturned on knees, and pretend we’re cupping a baby chick in each hand, feeling it breathe and wiggle slightly. Can’t grip too tightly, or we’ll hurt the babies! We breathe slowly and focus on the baby birds until things are all better. He even named the chicks (well, of course he did): Chick-Chick and The Fuzz. This morning, when Sam was bugging him and making him angry, he asked if we could switch to baby puppies, too small to crawl out of his hands, for variety.

Thing is, with Gabe, timing is paramount. As I said, if you can get to him, or he can get to himself, before he’s really and truly in the Red Zone, then these things have a chance at working. If we’re busy and don’t notice how upset he’s getting, or if something pushes him over the line too quickly for him to see it coming, then all bets are off, and any attempt to calm him down is going to backfire. I have yet to find anything to help in that situation; that’s when he’s screaming the worst things he can think, trying to throw things and hurt people, out of his mind. All you can do then is put him in his room – not simply to punish, but because most of the things in there are soft, unbreakable, and won’t hurt if hurled. Talking fuels the fire; hugs aren’t welcome. Nothing to do but let it burn out as quickly as it can, then regroup afterward, when he’ll still be upset, but he can see through to the other side.

In some ways, it’s more complicated than with Sam, who, like me, tends to get snappish instead of explosive, but lacks the attention span to hold the anger for very long once distracted. On the other hand, fire is about as simple as it gets, and that’s what Gabe is. The embers are frequently there, but he’s learning how to keep them as a controlled little campfire instead of a raging inferno. And he’s right when he sees “Bob” as enemy-yet-not. That fire is going to serve some purpose eventually; our sermon at church a couple of weeks ago stressed that anger itself isn’t bad, per se, but what we do in anger that can be great or terrible. He’ll get it, I have faith.

In-laws coming in this weekend! Exciting times ahead! I told Gabe to tell his playground leaders yesterday who was coming to visit him and he said, “Santa Claus?”

Anyway, lots of picking up to do before then. I warned the boys, but it’s their playroom that’s in the worst shape and in need of the most effort. That should be entertaining…

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So yesterday, I was picking up the boys from their respective playground programs, and as I approached an intersection with a stop sign, I became aware of a small buzzing sound in my ear just before the screeching started. Sam shakily announced, “There’s big bug on the door, and even I’m afraid of this one.” I turned my head and saw a Japanese beetle, clearly confused as it tried to parse its new location, away from the park trees. Now, the van side windows don’t open, so as I stopped at the stop sign, I pushed the button to open the door, hoping Sam would quickly brush the bug out of the opening.

What happened instead was that Gabe whipped off his seatbelt and yelled, at the top of his lungs, “PEACE! I’M OUT OF HERE!” and jumped out the door. Into the street.

Thankfully, there was no traffic coming our direction at the moment. I grabbed behind me frantically, snatching at his shirt and shouting for him to get back in the car, where as far as he was concerned, Certain Death by Insect awaited him with sharp, pointy teeth. He did come to the conclusion that the street was not a particularly safer place to be, though, so he climbed back in and stood between the seats, keening wordlessly while I tried to see whether the bug was even still in the vehicle. It seemed to have made a hasty retreat from us (who could blame it?!), so I managed to get Gabe to at least sit down and buckle up (thank you for your non-honking patience, car that pulled up behind us in the meantime) while howling.

So. Much. Fun.

Looks like the in-laws are coming to visit in a couple of weeks, which should be the better sort of fun. Every year, it appears, we’re destined to have family in from out of town during the week of State Fair. This is a good thing, since the more adult people keeping tabs on these children, the better. Stands selling Deep-Fried Butter (I’m so not kidding…) are probably bound to attract insects, and I don’t relish having to dash through crowds in pursuit of a terrified six-year-old.

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I did my run today at 5 AM, hoping to avoid the worst of the day’s heat-advisory-level temps, but I was sticky before I even got out the door. Thank God this is a fall race, so I’m still in the low mileage zone.

This whole basement thing is creating an interesting phenomenon. My elementary school kids are turning into bona fide frat boys down there. They’re hooting and hollering over video games, sprawled out all over the floor (oh, by the way, want to know what’s better than $45 bean bag chairs for which you also have to buy your own “beans” to stuff them yourself? Giant doggy beds. You’re welcome.), completely oblivious to any kind of social mores; last night, unable to fathom cooking, I ordered pizza, and when I went down to check on them later, the scene was so very Animal House that I almost went looking for hidden togas and kegs. Terrifying.

Unrelated, Gabe now says he wants to be a judge when he grows up. This can in no way end boringly.

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Only “down side” this week has been that I haven’t run. On Friday, the slight thigh twinges I’d been feeling on some of my runs began to make me nervous to the point where I decided that rather than risk worsening it, I would take some rest time and swim. So swim I did! I even went so far as to sign up for free swimming plans at Swimplan.com, which generates workouts based on your ability level and goals. It’s been an interesting little sidebar, and I think I’m already beginning to see some improvements in my skills! Not that I’m training to be a real Capital-S-Swimmer, or even a triathlete, but I figure that a thing worth doing is a thing worth doing well, and there’s no point in using swimming as a cross-training activity without working on developing it.

Going to hit a running form clinic tonight, at a brand new running store. Education and information, all around!

Sam had a playground field trip to a water park today, and Gabe had a “mess fest” through his playground program. You may remember when Sam had this experience:

Gabe has stayed home and refused to participate in the activity for the past two years, but this year, he decided to give it a go, reserving the right to not take part in anything too gross. He met with success:

That’s mostly paint, though at one point he sat in a chair, playing Musical Chairs, before realizing it contained spaghetti with sauce. Ewwww!

Back to the regular grind now!

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Gabe is currently out riding his bike along the sidewalk, which…okay, awesome. It’s Sam’s hand-me-down Trek, currently with training wheels, and I’m not at all worried about anything going wrong, since he is beyond cautious over it. It took real strength of will for him to convince himself to hop on, but he’s going at it doggedly, and he’s hit a point where he feels he’s “going really fast!” (swiftly enough to make me break into a power-walk next to him). He did have a crash yesterday, when he tried to make too sharp a turn for his skill level, and, as I predicted, he immediately insisted he didn’t want to ride anymore. Luckily, we’d had that talk already, he and I, and I jumped right in, reminding him that he had to get back on right away and show it who was boss. So he did, and it was all good.

This morning, I discovered that at some point, the chest freezer in the basement got unplugged. The seal on that thing is impressive; I had no clue until I opened it, and then…oh, the humanity. I’ve plugged it back in, for now, hoping that letting it freeze a little bit before cleaning will make the stench a bit more tolerable.

Gabe pulled me over to a framed family photo this morning, propped against the wall where it will hang. “I saw this, and I don’t want it to change,” he said. I told him we couldn’t leave it there, since it would fall over and break, but he stopped me. “I mean, I don’t want that to change. I want us to stay just like that.”

“We look nice there, I know. We’ll have other portraits, though, that look nice, too, as we grow up,” I said.
“But…when I’m a teenager, will I still live in this house?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come sleep in your bed, then, too?”
“If you really want to.”
“I’m just going to miss us all.” Then he ran off.

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Now, this has arisen before, only then, it was “K. can’t play with Gabe unless Sam is out there, too.” I get that. She’s about twelve years old, and her parents find it a little uncomfortable for her to be playing alone with a six-year-old, even one who sees himself more as a teenager trapped in a first-grader’s body. (Maybe even especially that kind of kid.) This was different, though; Gabe insisted that the new rule excluded him without caveat, which…what?

So she came to our house when finished with chores, and I went to learn the truth. As she explained, since she doesn’t play with her own sister, Gabe’s age, she’s not to play with Gabe either. That’s a bit muddled in my mind; if I had to guess, I’d say her parents are aggravated that she’s “too cool” to play with her sister, so they’re making a statement about that. But that leaves Gabe…devastated. “All right, then,” I said to her, “but if you guys are playing in our yard, Gabe will be allowed outside. I’m not keeping him in when you come over.” She agreed quickly. Then she and Sam went over to her house.

Gabe was forlorn. It’s not fair that he should be punished in this situation, and I had a hard time coming up with a way to console him. I suggested that we go see if K.’s little sister could play, but he didn’t want to play with her; he wants to play Big Kid games with Big Kids – his friends, as far as he’s concerned. I took him on a bike ride up and down the street, trying to distract him with the novelty of it, but he kept sighing. “What if they’re happy that I’m not with them?” he said. “What if they’re laughing and happier that I’m not there?”

Then they came back to our garage, entranced by the lure of shade, and Gabe decided to lurk on the sidelines. He took out bubbles, trying to attract their attention, but when it didn’t work, he whispered, “Don’t they miss me?”

I want to punch somebody for him.

Cleared to run yesterday by the podiatrist, who said my toes were healing “phenomenally.” I celebrated with a short run, using 2:1 run/walk intervals, and felt great. Then today, trying to come back cautiously, I went swimming instead. Yay, adrenaline.

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Happy Father’s Day to my wonderful husband, the father of our awesome little men. We love you so much!

And to my own dad, who I miss so much and cannot wait to see in a few weeks. Happy Father’s Day to you, too!

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Well, somebody had the audacity to wake up ten years old this morning. Can you believe that? The nerve! I told him to knock it off right this instant and go back to being the little ball of baby he’s supposed to be, but he just giggled at me! In a voice that, while not exactly changing yet, is way deeper than the giggle I know he had yesterday, when he was pushing his little Elmo lawn mower around the yard, or even playing on a blanket, surrounded by soft toys. That was yesterday, wasn’t it?

Or perhaps not. This Sam has huge feet, and he’s “maybe, sort of” interested in girls, perhaps. This one wobbles wildly between sweet and gentle and filled with raging hormones with which he’s only barely acquainted at this point and has no hope of controlling. He uses that shower gel that’s supposed to surround you with women wild to run their hands through his hair. (Hasn’t happened yet, thanks this mom.) He rolls his eyes at the injustice of having parents who refuse to buy him video games that feature eviscerations and flying intestines.

But he actually cooed this morning when he saw the origami crane and butterflies his great-grandma sent him in his birthday card. He snuggles stuffed animals, and he sees absolutely nothing wrong with taking them out to dinner in restaurants with him. He draws in notebooks, frequently and with great detail. He still can’t quite wrap his mind around schoolwork and organization skills that many kids his age are beginning to handle with ease. And he’s singing to himself in the kitchen right now, completely without self-consciousness: “It’s my birrrrrrrth-day! Happy birrrrrrth-day!”

This Sam chose a bike for his birthday, as he did four and six years ago.

  

The bikes keep getting bigger. That’s easier for me to focus on noticing, not the fact that the kid riding them is also growing, up to my chin with no signs of stopping. In the end, it’s still the same look on his face as he flies down the street, laughing at the wind in his face and loving the way he can move so fast, riding farther and farther away from home, away from me.

And then he turns, looks back, and flies back to me. For now.

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After we left, we had another, longer talk. He was utterly appalled, thankfully, and I was very relieved that he hadn’t taken the time to help Gabe sound out the words on the locker. Thankfully, Gabe was uninterested in the actual vocabulary used; he was far more freaked by what had caught Sam’s eye first: the rest of the sentence, which made reference to hanging. (Can I just say, once more, that these are the milestones you really, really don’t want?!) I told them both that the sort of people who write those things on lockers are usually cowards, the sort of people who would probably drop the pen and run if anybody caught them at it.

I didn’t say that they wouldn’t have had much to worry about, anyway, being the “right” color of skin for this racist vandal. That lesson, the one about privilege, can wait.

I hope the graffiti is gone when the kids enter the locker room next time. Honestly, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m a little less comfortable sending them in there next time than I was today. The time they go in, the locker room is full of young kids, not grownups, but I don’t like it. Sadly, Sam’s just undeniably too old for me to take him in the women’s or the family locker room, even if Gabe wasn’t hitting the borders of that stage, himself. I felt fine about Sam being in there with Gabe before today. Now we’ve hit yet another of those bumps that make me want to whisk my family away to some safe, clean place…that doesn’t really exist, I know, but I can’t help wishing, and mourning yet another loss of innocence.

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Gabe’s kindergarten class staged their “graduation” ceremony yesterday. It was an in-class thing, with no parents, so I have no idea what he did besides get a graduation cap and a diploma…and pick up a brand-new set of anxieties.

“I’m scared,” he mumbled this morning, curled into a corner of the rocking chair. “I’m scared of first grade.” Of course, he still has two days left of kindergarten before this should even be an issue, but never mind that; the cap was placed on his head, so in his mind, he’s on to the next step. “What if I get a mean teacher?”

I had Sam try to tell him about his own first-grade experience, for which he had a perfectly lovely teacher, but it didn’t help much. Gabe is a fretter, not the optimist Sam tends to be, and change – specifically, change that he hasn’t weighed in his own mind and made with deliberation and autonomy – isn’t anything he seeks, as a rule. It took him a fairly long time to adjust to kindergarten, and it seems like that might a recurring theme, not a one-off. Doesn’t help that, having the big brother that Sam didn’t, he’s learned about the concept of “mean teacher” as a reality, not a television show anomaly. Mean teachers exist at his school, and it doesn’t matter that he’s unlikely to get one next year; their confirmed presence is enough to inject uncertainty into his mind.

I sort of wish this could have waited until at least midway through the summer. The last few days of school are supposed to be about celebrating the end of one year, not dreading the next one already. Besides, first grade at this particular school is fun especially for a little ham like Gabe is. Remember this? They work on that musical for a huge chunk of the year, and if I know my second-born, he’ll love it. But he’s building terrors already, which means they’ll be huge and hulking by summer’s end. Wish I could know now which teacher he’ll have; if it’s the sweet one Sam had, we could really console him all vacation long.

Oh, well. We’ll just have to keep him too busy to worry much – although, with that child, that’s a tall order. In any case, both kids are signed up for summer classes (Gabe is taking a pottery class, which his friend Nathan is also taking, and Sam is in a science one where they’ll do crazy experiments to solve problems), and then they’ll be in the playground programs as well. (Sam wasn’t wild about how he’s aged into the program devoted solely to sports, instead of the mix of sports and crafts the younger kids do, but there’s nothing I can do about that part.) We changed our gym membership from the barebones gym we’ve been using over to the YMCA, and the kids will continue their swimming lessons and be able to do other activities there, as well. It’ll be a fun summer…if Gabe can get his mind off his troubles.

Oh, and if I can get back on the road running. Okay, four days of no running, and the novelty has officially worn off. Maybe it has to do with how this week’s oppressive heat broke last night, and now it’s perfect running weather out there, and I’m still benched, but…ugh. My toes are healing nicely, with very little pain, but I’d almost welcome a little (a very little, mind) discomfort if it helped to console me about not lacing up just yet. I feel fine! Waaah!

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SAM: “Okay, I want to stop working.”
ME: “How many days do you have left?”
SAM: “…not counting days 14 and 15…five.”
ME: “So, seven?”
SAM: “Yeah.”
ME: “You had nine left when you started. It’s taken you this long to do two, and at that speed, there’s no way you’ll finish tomorrow without crazy work.”
SAM: “Okay, but can I at least take a break until four o’clock?”
ME: “That would be fine. But no arguing when I say it’s four, and you need to get back to-”
SAM: “ALL RIGHT! I’ll work now!”
ME: “Um, okay…”
SAM: “Stop talking to me! I said I’d work now!”
ME: “Okay.”
SAM: “STOP SAYING OKAY!”
GABE: “…I’m almost done my Lego guy.”
SAM: “NOBODY TALK!!!”

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Fourteen years today since the day we said “I do” to each other. The fourteenth wedding anniversary is traditionally the “ivory” year, though we’re forgoing that (or any other material gift, opting instead to spend the afternoon together while the kids are in school). I laughed at the website that suggested that couples could take a trip to Africa to admire elephants. That’s not exactly in the cards for us right now, though maybe someday it could be fun.

The modern anniversary calendar proclaims this year to be the year of “gold.” Ah, impatience. Is it that so few couples stand a chance at making it to fifty years, the real Golden Anniversary, together, or is it just that nobody feels like they can wait that long? I don’t like the modern calendar; it feels like it’s trying to hurry things that shouldn’t be hurried, rushing to get to the end of what’s meant to be savored. Gold is for fifty years, and it should take a while to get there. That’s the point.

I’ve been with my husband for fourteen years, and while that is a very long time, it’s simultaneously just the beginning of a journey. He sighs dramatically when I relate it to running, but this is just past the half-marathon mark…and we’re running an ultra. Still so much to see, to learn, to experience together. Those elephants are waiting, and there’s no pressure to get there tomorrow. What might we miss today if we felt like that?

It’s raining today, just like it was then. Rain on your wedding day is good luck, they say. I think luck is overrated, but there’s much to be said for standing in the rain (real or metaphorical) with your partner. Call it luck, or call it love. Just be together.

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GABE: “What? What’s funny?”
ME: “My book made me laugh.”
GABE: “Tell me!”
ME: “It’s complicated and long. I’d have to go back to the beginning.”
GABE: “So? Go back!”
ME: “It’s a grown-up’s book!”
GABE: “Tell me now!”
ME: “Well, okay…there’s a king who had a baby, and he invited everybody to see her, and he accidentally invited vampires, and they -”
GABE: “I’m going to laugh now. Ha, ha. See? It was funny, and I got it.” (He stomps off.)

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But I’ll live. ::sniffle::

By the way, that’s the teddy bear, in the picture, that the boys sent along with Eric on his trip. The photos are all tooth-achingly precious, especially where the folks Eric met decided to get involved. Nothing like seeing your teddy bear perched between a couple of grinning German hotel desk clerks to make a kid howl with laughter. Gabe actually laughed hardest at the photos showing Miles the Bear enjoying his meals, I think. Can’t wait to see the hijinks a stuffed animal can enjoy in Orlando.

Twenty days until marathon day!

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The kids brought home their new school pictures.

  

And I insta-aged about ten years, just looking at them. Seriously, between Sam’s “too cool to giggle out loud” facial expression and Gabe’s Casanova-ish swagger, I just…where did my babies go? I think I’ll just make myself feel a little better:

Ah, yes. There they are.

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So Rachel dropped by my place at 5:30, and we ran for a lovely hour, chatting and enjoying the morning; the rain never materialized, and my legs felt great. I was feeling really optimistic as I got home, grabbed my things, and piled into the car…and then, about fifteen minutes down the road, I realized I’d forgotten my gel for the race. Now, I didn’t panic too much. I had eaten a couple of prunes before running with Rachel (no time to eat anything substantial and have it do anything but sit like a brick in my belly), and I was eating a Clif bar in the car, so I though that I’d be okay for now, and surely there’d be aid stations with fuel along the course. (Dun-dun-dunnnnnnn… [huzzah, foreshadowing!])

Got there, and no rain appeared! I strapped on my race belt, wandered to the start, and chatted with some folks while waiting for the bathrooms (ooh, posh: hotel restrooms right by the starting line!). Then, right on time, we were off. Almost immediately, the people running the Euro Cross-Country route split off from us half and full marathoners, which was a bit confusing, since the guy directing us was speaking realllllly sloooooowly as we approached, and I was nearly on top of him before I knew which direction to go. The answer: up the hill. And for the next eight miles, that was to be the only answer. Up, up, up.

After about five miles, I was beginning to really regret the extra miles I’d done before the race. My hips and hamstrings, especially were unhappy. And perhaps the Euro runners were getting good scenery (they kept meeting back up with us, only to duck down between shadows into what looked like people’s driveways…), but what we got was cattle farms of the more pungent variety. Phew! But we did see one calf frolicking at us as we passed, which was precious and lifted my spirits a bit.

Eight or nine miles in, my hip decided to lock up a bit. Ran through it, and it went away. I was getting a bit annoyed, too, by how the mile markers were placed quite wrongly, and my assumption about the race course fuel had been wrong as well. No fuel. No gels. I did the race on Gatorade alone, which…well, it left me feeling quite bad by that ninth mile on. I wanted to stop, but that wasn’t an option. For one, I’ve never yet DNFed a race, and for another, this was a point-to-point course, and I needed to make it to the end to reach the shuttle back home. I kept running. At least it was flat at this point.

Around mile 12, there were two punishing downhills. My hips and hamstrings got joined by my quads and shins in the chorus of complaint. Everything below my waist felt like lead. Good times.

I finally reached the finish line at 1:57:42, which put me 5/11 in my age group and 95/259 overall. Grabbed my medal, grabbed my water, ran for the boat the finish line volunteer told me was the shuttle back, waited around a bit until it became clear that they were wrong, then hobbled to the bus that was the correct shuttle. I made it back home about 15 minutes before Eric got picked up for the airport, thank goodness.

Ow.

Mother’s Day, on the other hand, was as restful as it could be, considering my husband is in another country. I got bath salts from Gabe, and both boys gave me potted plants they assembled at church. We ate out at a nice vegetarian restaurant, then had gelato afterward. Nothing fancy, which was as my legs would have it. Oh, but I do wonder if I’ll ever be able to make it through a Mother’s Day sermon at church without tearing up when the kids come in to hand out little flowers or candies to all the moms…

Denny’s: not the vegetarian restaurant.

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The first day of Spring Break has been a bit tumultuous. Sam had a check-up with his doctor regarding a recently-begun medication, and in the course of that check-up, she determined that the cough we’d been writing off as an allergic flare-up was something buried firmly deep in his lungs and needing to be treated in a different fashion. So we had to get those pills, and we had to grab construction paper for a homework project, and we stopped by the bookstore for some “Spring Break Emergency Quiet-Time Reading Materials” (Sam chose a book on the sinking of the Bismarck; Gabe picked a Pokemon handbook), and by the time we finally made it home, the boys were nigh on feral. They’ve been snapping and biting, figuratively, ever since. (And if you think homemade banana waffles would soothe their nerves, you’d, apparently, be wrong.) Eric wisely opted for an outing with a coworker tonight over the waffles, but that’s okay; I’ve got running club tomorrow morning, and he can deal with the early morning bickering.

We haven’t dyed eggs for Easter this year. Not sure we will; it’s one thing, as it was when I was a kid and we did Easter at my grandma’s church, when you’re dying a bunch to take to church for a big ol’ Egg Hunt, but it’s another entirely when the only people to see your eggs are yourselves, and not that many people in the family are wild about hard-boiled eggs, anyway, but it hardly seems worth it to break out the dye for the small number of eggs you’ll realistically consume (and egg salad isn’t a favorite, either)…isn’t there something else we could dye? Hot cross buns aren’t piquing their interests, in the alternative.

The secular celebration of Easter is definitely something that loses its charm on the other side of the adult-child equation, at least for me. Christmas? Birthdays? Sure. Not this one, though. Way more fun to hunt for a basket and squeal over chocolate eggs than to manage the behind-the-scene workings on this one. But perhaps I’m feeling a bit grumbly; I’ll probably be over it as soon as the sun makes another (fleeting) appearance.

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Eric’s home today. It started as a “Man Cold,” but now he’s running a fever and has chills, and his throat is killing him. He’s heading to the doctor here in a bit; they think it might be strep. (So help me, if either the kids or I get it…) Hope he gets better quickly; illnesses tend to linger with him, considering his other, chronic illnesses and the sleep apnea machine that likes to blow congestion into his sinuses.

It’s weird, having this snow and grey weather outside, and illnesses inside, after yesterday’s prettiness. Sam played outside with a friend, and I took Gabe (ostracized by the older kids after an argument) on a long, pleasant walk to a friend’s house. The reason for the visit wasn’t so pleasant; her adult son passed away this week, and I assisted with the funeral just before, so this was the mourners’ gathering. But the spirits were strong, and everybody was drawing comfort from the group. Gabe was very polite, talking with her about her dogs. Easier to think about that than other things, for all involved.

Anyway. This is the last week before Spring Break, for which we’re not doing much; Eric has a business trip, just for a day, in the middle of the week, which precludes any larger plans. Low-key is good, though. I’m learning to appreciate that as I get older.

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I also managed, through total fluke, to bring along a book I was idly rereading…having completely forgotten that I’d promised to loan it to the friend I sat with for the meeting. She was all, “Are you reading that again?” and it still took me about fifteen minutes to put two and two together and remember I’d said I’d give it to her. Precious. I swear, the hair is naturally red, not blonde…

Yum, soup.

I’m theoretically racing tomorrow. Ask me if I’ve registered. Part of this brain still thinks that the moment I plunk down the money to run, my leg will immediately implode. Gotta love paranoia, don’t you? I’m also aggravated that new travel has made it back onto Eric’s work schedule, and it’s trying to mess with both the half-marathon I wanted to run in early May and the marathon I planned for June. Not completely, mind you, just nibbling at the edges, coming too close for comfort. Can I make it back from the race in time for Eric to catch his flight, you know? (He says it’ll be fine; I say that it’s not what I wanted to be worrying over as I run…)

Of secondary concern to me is that he’ll be out of the country for Mother’s Day. That’s secondary mostly because we can still celebrate another day, but it’ll be a bummer to wrangle the kids by my lonesome if I try to brave a Mother’s Day brunch. Not a huge issue, though. The biggest issue, beyond races and brunches, is my husband is going away again. At least it’s Germany this time; I won’t be nearly as terrified for his safety. (Note: this is not the cue to start telling me about bizarre violent crime sprees that might be currently happening in Deutschland. Seriously.)

Anyway, might go run in the rain now. Gently – not out of fear, though, of course! No, it’s just…taper! Yeah, taper! For a 5K…

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It can be really tough to be somebody’s hero sometimes.

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Also, apparently Gabe works better if the bath toys used for the babies’ “splash class” are incorporated. Yes, my six-year-old will doggedly swim across the pool to reach a green rubber ducky. I don’t know what that says. Nor do I care.

Sam, meanwhile, is doing splendidly, outside than his reluctance to put his face in the water and risk getting water up his nose. I keep trying to tell him that if he puts his face in flat, instead of up and down, and if he breathes out of his nose, it’s not likely to be a problem, but so far, he hasn’t gotten the knack, so he keeps getting his sinuses soaked. It’s not dampening his enthusiasm, though; despite being the oldest one in the group, he also seems to be the least reserved about things, so I could hear him gleefully hollering from across the room, “CHICKEN…AIRPLANE…SOLDIER!!!”, swimming his arms in the accompanying pattern as the teacher towed him along on his back. (Part of the shouting was due to his ears being submersed; when he reached the end of the pool and stood, he asked, “Was I yelling?”)

Three more lessons. I don’t know if either kid will “graduate,” but at least there’s increased comfort in the water. Gabe was most impressed with his progress last night, asking me if I was proud of him, over and over. I tried to tell him that I’m always proud, but he knows well enough to be able to compare the previous weeks’ efforts with last night’s. He knows there was a difference, and I think we’re turning a corner.

(So long as next week doesn’t involve face-dunking, anyway.)

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(Funny story about the purse: at customs, the man asked, “Did you buy any bags?” Eric answered in the affirmative, and the man asked what kind. “I don’t know. Brown,” Eric said. “Not Prada or Coach.” The customs guy let Eric through. I later chided Eric, laughingly, since he’s the one who watched almost every episode of “Sex in the City,” so he’s the one who really should have remembered Carrie Bradshaw’s fondness for the brand. The wallet brand, we both had to Google, though.)

Sam’s back, too, from the Dells. He’s lucky to be alive, that one; I discovered on Sunday night that he had hidden an inch-high stack of late homework assignments in the back of his closet so that I wouldn’t find them and make him work on them before (or possibly instead of) going on the trip. He’s being suitably punished; no screens of any kind until every single assignment has been placed into his teacher’s waiting hands. (She emailed me to check on the stack; that’s the only way I even would have found out about the ruse.) He’s taking it in stride, thankfully, after an initial freak-out and a few minor panic attacks over some of the work that he hadn’t begun because he thought it was too hard. Not that it isn’t hard stuff, some of it; I honestly have vivid memories of tackling some of these specific topics in high school.

Gabe’s bugaboo continues to be swimming. After yesterday’s screamfest, one of the senior teachers approached me and said that next week, he’d like to take on Gabe one-on-one in the therapy pool. Gabe, when he heard that, flipped out and tearfully insisted that he’d be just fine in his regular class (I think he got scared about the idea of not being able to “hide” behind the rest of the class), but he’s come to terms with it and told my mom last night on the phone that he was doing it this way by choice. We’ll see how it goes.

Dragging today. Last night’s thunderstorm got a little bit of an overachiever complex, pelting the windows so loudly that I had to close the doors to the rooms on the windward side of the house or the noise would have been deafening. I think there was hail, too, and the ground had a light covering of snow when we woke. Sheesh. And, yes, I’ll be going out to run in a few minutes, before the “wintry mix” kicks back up again.

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Eric’s on his way home, and not a moment too soon. I’m so incredibly excited to see him! He’ll be exhausted, but we’ll let him get some rest – after the initial attack, of course.

Gonna go snuggle my Gabe now!

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(Unrelated to anything, I woke up this morning with a wretched cramp in my calf that won’t go away. It’s demanding attention right now, pulsing at me. Argh.)

Anyway, it’ll be a quiet weekend here, though Gabe’s now lobbying hard for fun activities to mollify his disappointment. I’m down for some fun, but, sorry, kid, we are not checking into a waterpark hotel for kicks. After hearing the screams at your last swimming lesson (honestly, are you ever going to stop that?), I don’t know why you’d want to go to a water-themed place, anyway. By the way, it’s water in the pool, not acid-laced quicksand; I promise that if you stand up at the shallow end of the pool, you will be able to breathe and not “DIEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Eric gets back Saturday afternoon; I’ll be able to do my long run, but not early with the running club. This past week was a step-back week, and this week I’m back up to a whole (gasp!) nine miles. I’m doing it right, careful and cautious as can be, but a little part of me is so frustrated at the slow increases. Then again, another small part of me is, well, afraid. This year has been one injury after another, and I can’t help but worry that every time I add on an extra mile or two, I’m risking yet another malady. I haven’t signed up for any races yet, even the 5K in a few weeks that I know I’m in fine shape to do. Just can’t wrap my mind around it; something could still Go Wrong. I know it’s not rational; like I said, the rational part of my brain is being patient and calm in the face of the slow-but-steady build-up. Those two little warring factions in the corners of my mind, though, can get pretty noisy.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s a question: Lent is considered to be forty days, as Sundays are considered by the church to be “feast days.” But St. Patrick’s Day is also considered a feast day by the church, so why isn’t Lent considered 39 days? Just occurred to me this morning. Then again, I wasn’t raised in a liturgical church, so maybe this is a “duh” question that gets explained easily during confirmation or something.

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Eric just called from a bar in Changzhou, where his work contingency is spending a couple of days at another plant. I heard three women singing very loudly in the background; it sounded like a lot of fun was being had. Eric says that in many ways, it’s not all that different from visiting any other large city (though Changzhou is a little more rural); his hosts took them for lunch yesterday at Papa John’s pizza, and today they were given bao dumplings and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Today is swimming lesson number three. (Cringing preemptively, I am.) It’s going to be very interesting if/when they get to the end of the class and Sam graduates, while Gabe, if he continues on his current trajectory, doesn’t. I expect fireworks in that “unfair!” situation.

Need more coffee now.

(By the way, today’s the last day of round one voting for my friend’s contest. I’d love to see them advance and get closer to a goal that would help Todd provide for his family when he won’t be able to do so himself any longer.)

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Sam is feeling a bit better, though he’s still coughing quite a bit, and when I sent him upstairs a while ago to rest, he actually went, and he was asleep in his bed when I looked in (having expected to find him on the computer playing Roblox or Wizard 101). Gabe seems better, too. He has a sore throat, but after an initial period of high drama concerning that, he’s just about completely returned to normal. Also, yesterday’s “full clean out” ended highly anticlimactically. Sparing you the details (you’re welcome), I heard him go into the bathroom this morning, where he loudly muttered, “Daaaaang!” in an impressed tone, and that was that.

Here’s to the coming week being just as anticlimactic as that. Things always seem to go wrong when Eric’s out of town, but we’ve had enough badness already. Met my quota, thanks.

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Gabe came home from school yesterday sobbing that his head hurt and he wanted to throw up. (That’s the good thing about Gabe; you don’t usually have to guess about when he’s sick.) He was burning up, so I gave him some fever reducers. Coincidentally, I just happened to be on the phone with the intake scheduler for his endoscopy, which we were in the process of setting up for this morning. Their criteria is that the patient can’t have a fever over 101 within twelve hours of the procedure, so we banked on his illness following Sam’s route and canceled for now.

Of course, he woke up this morning feeling mostly fine. It’s possible he’s running a low-grade fever; the thermometer said he was okay, but he felt slightly warm to me and I don’t trust these digital thermometer readings very much. The bigger thing was that he was chatty, perky, and insistent that he was going to school to have fun. So he did, but I’m keeping close to the phone.

It seems like these kids are getting sick far more often this year, and I wonder whether it’s that they’re both at the same school now? At least when they were at two different places, my chances were better that only one would be exposed to whatever plague was sweeping the playground.

Speaking of illnesses, though on a far distant stage, I found out this week that a friend of mine, who attended my church and was a member of the local mothers’ club with me…I found out that her husband was diagnosed with ALS last year.

I can’t even imagine the storm that sweeps through a family in a situation such as this. They have two young children, and the life expectancy for her husband is now around two to five heartbreaking years. The thought of what they’ll all be facing is unfathomable.

I have no idea how many people read this blog; a while back, it just stopped being important to me to know. I know there are at least a few, though, and it would be a great gift if we could all help Kristin and Todd out with what they’re trying to do at this point. There’s a contest – just a “click and vote” thing – where they have the chance to win the funds to be able to build a handicapped-accessible house. With so much else that they’ll need to handle, this seems like a concrete way to help take a little of the load off their backs.

If you’re on Facebook, just click through here and cast a vote for them. It would mean a great deal.

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Gabe scribbled and drew during choir practice, stopping frequently to ask me questions about what was going on and what we were singing. He tried to sing along with a couple of the songs, but that seemed like too much work before long. Sam didn’t appear, but I figured he had found a friend or a class full of toys, so no big deal; there were enough people we knew around the church that he wasn’t going to get into much trouble. Besides, I was a little distracted by “Why do the boy singers sit in the back?” and “Why isn’t she using a stick to conduct? Is she dancing?” and “Why are the microphones hanging so high? Do we need to yell?”

After rehearsal ended and we began getting ready for service, Sam wandered in. He…didn’t look so good. His face was a little red, he looked tired, and he said his head hurt. He sat on the pew next to Eric, giving off waves of miserable. Eric questioned me with his eyes, but I said that Sam had been fine over dinner, so he could probably make it through church. By partway through the first hymn, I leaned over to him and suggested that he go get one of the “Quiet Bags” fro the back of the church, since drawing usually cheers him up. He wandered out toward them, and he never returned. (He found a couch in the narthex instead, curling up and dozing.)

Meanwhile, Gabe was anything but unobtrusive. There were moments where it was okay; the pastor asked us to call out things for which we were grateful, and Gabe piped up, “My mom!” He also said the Lord’s Prayer with us, loudly and slightly out of sync, so everybody around us could hear. When the choir got up to sing, though, he began to panic and wanted to come with me. Plenty of chuckles around us; one man said, “Aw, let him come up!” I knew that wasn’t the answer, so I tried to get him to just sit in the front pew instead, where he could see us (and we could see him). Seemed okay…until the piano started, and Gabe got up to dance. For the record, I don’t think “The Monkey” can be legitimately construed as liturgical dance. I heard more laughter, and I tried to motion for him to sit down and knock it off.

Our director, in the middle of conducting, whispered for him to sit. He didn’t. He started to get agitated and unhappy. I envisioned myself having to jump down from the stairs and take him out of the church, midway through the song. The director eventually grabbed him and took him to stand in front of her for the second part of the song, where he was happier but more curious; I saw him try to pepper her with questions as she tried desperately to just get us to the double bar. (By the way, he was marched up to apologize to her after the service finally ended.)

So the sermon started, and he listened with half an ear while he scribbled more. I actually didn’t think he was listening at all, but I was wrong; when the word “ashes” was spoken, he was on his feet like a shot, ready to RUN to the front and get ashed. Had to hold him back until his turn came, at which point he cooperated nicely. When we got back to the pews, though, he started to cry. “This is making me SAD!” he whispered. “Jesus DIED!”

Service ended; the pastor invited Gabe up to blow out the candles on the altar. Went and retrieved Sam; bundled up and fled. Gabe may not be ready for primetime, but he does keep us on our toes.

(Sam’s home from school today; the fever’s getting hotter and hotter. Poor kid!)

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Ash Wednesday today. We’ll be at the church service tonight. Last year, Gabe was highly resistant to me talking about any of it, but this year, he’s a little more receptive. He even went so far as to very generously suggest that he give up his swimming lessons for Lent. Yeah, sure, little man. (I overheard the man I presume is in charge of the swimming lessons talking to Gabe’s teacher yesterday after lessons, telling her that she needed to “get tough” with Gabe. I actually agree; Gabe spent about 85%+ of the lesson standing next to the pool, wringing his hands and weeping loudly, while the teacher made a couple of attempts to encourage him to jump in and participate on his own. That was not going to happen in any universe; he needed somebody to take a firm hand and make the decision for him. It’s one of those things that he’s built up in his head as a horrible, terrible thing, and he’s not going to be able to wrap his mind around the possibility of being wrong until somebody presses it and shows him so. I eventually went and stood beside him next to the pool, doing everything I could to encourage him, but I wasn’t in the water to catch him, so he wasn’t buying it.

Sam, of course, had tremendous fun again. His only issue came when the teacher had to tell him to stop getting away from the wall when she wasn’t helping him dog paddle up and down the lane. This could have been a serious issue…was he not about a foot taller than most of the other kids in the class, well able to stand flat-footed on the bottom of the pool and in no danger. But he needs to listen, so that’s that. (Second verse, same as the first…)

Hmmm, I think Sam’s head might be feeling better; he’s perking up enough to play with Gabe – and giving me resistance about combing his hair and finishing getting ready for school. Better go deal with that now!

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More swimming lessons today. Cross your fingers we have more success with Gabe than we did last week.

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Sam samples a tiny taste before it hits the table. “It’s okay!” he says with a polite smile. I give him a small portion on his plate, which he picks at and picks at and shoves around with his fork, before he finally gives up. “I didn’t really like it,” he says. “I guess I was just saying that.”

Gabe clamps both hands over his mouth, refusing to even look at the new food. Attempts to get him to take a teeny taste are met with gagging (before the fork enters his mouth) and tears. He nibbles on the few items on the table that he recognizes (last night, it was dry taco shells and some bits of grated cheese). Just as I’ve given up, he suddenly folds. “I want you to be PROUD of me!” he says. “I’ll try to taste something new so you’ll be HAPPY!” And he unflinchingly pops a small bite of the offending food into his mouth, which he doesn’t enjoy, but which he chews and swallows. “There! I did it!”

Two sides of the same coin. At our parent-teacher conferences last week, most of the shared teachers (music, art, etc.) said that they wouldn’t have even known they were brothers if I hadn’t brought them in together. I can tell, though.

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It could have been an evening where Gabe got lots of pleasant, all-to-himself fun time with Eric and me, but unfortunately, his body decided to launch a new gastric attack instead. He spend the afternoon howling and crying and vomiting and moaning, poor kid. I really, really wish I knew how to help him; he’s taking an antacid, as prescribed by the specialist, and he has an endoscopy scheduled for later this week. Praying for an answer, once and for all!

It’s felt like an especially long weekend, anyway, due to both boys being on forced video-game “hiatus” for different reasons. (Gabe threw an epic – even by his standards – public scream-fest over a haircut, of all things, and Sam had an honesty issue.) Tomorrow is Monday, thank goodness, and we can both parole them and be released ourselves from the nonstop complaining. Actually, it’s mostly been Gabe; Sam was upset, but he got over it pretty quickly and found other ways to occupy himself. Gabe, though, has been quite persistent at trying to find ways around his punishment, with semantics and loopholes and attempts at trickery. No outright sneaking, though; at least he hasn’t gone that far.

Tomorrow is Empty Bowls! Eric can go with us this year; last year he was away, but this year he won’t be leaving for another trip until next weekend. Sam’s supposed to have Scouts, but when I mentioned that to Eric, he firmly said that Empty Bowls was more important. I tend to agree.

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And that’s pretty much how the whole thing went.

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The scene: this morning, on the phone with our doctor’s office, trying to fix the situation.
The complication: the referral specialist can’t even find Gabe in the computer system, despite him being a regular patient. She’s obviously frustrated, and she takes out her frustration on me by becoming increasingly snappy and rude, hanging up on me before I can even thank her or say goodbye.
FUN LEVEL RATING: 3/10

The scene: driving to the gastro.
The complication: an ice storm hit last night, and everything is coated in a moderately thick layer of ice. The van’s side door wouldn’t even open, so Gabe had to climb in the driver’s door. Roads are awful, Gabe is making funny noises that might be related to motion sickness, and the van begins to make a strange, jack-hammery noise whenever I get to a certain speed. (In hindsight, I think it was from the corner of the bumper, which got torn away from repeated impacts with snow boulders after the last blizzard.) Couldn’t find the office; called on my cell and was told they were not in the building I thought they were. Circled around again and again; called back, got another receptionist, and learned that they were in that building. Drifted into the parking lot on gas fumes.
FUN LEVEL RATING: 7/10

The scene: the exam.
The complication: my son is a monkey on crack, refusing to cooperate or be quiet so I can hear the doctor talk. She’s suggesting procedure after procedure, and he’s hopping on the colored tiles on the floor, yelling, “IT’S LAVA, AND I CAN’T STEP ON LAVA!”
FUN LEVEL RATING: 3/10

The scene: gas station, on our way to radiologist and lab for tests
The complication: everything is covered in ice, including the pump and the card reader. It’s a pre-pay pump, too, so then I have to go inside, taking Gabe along so he can beg for every form of candy or beef jerky at eye level.
FUN LEVEL: 2/10

The scene: the lab.
The complication: Gabe realizes where we are and what’s about to happen. The lab tech sits in front of an impressively scary array of syringes and vials while doing the paperwork, allowing Gabe enough time to FREAK THE HECK OUT, run away down a corridor, and shout dire threats back at us should he be forced to comply with a blood draw. “I’m not even sick! I feel just fine! Sam should be here – make HIM get a blood test! I’m not doing it, and you can’t make me! I’ll beat you up!” In the end, it takes me (legs wrapped around his, one arm around his chest and unused arm, the other arm holding his head immobile) and two lab techs to get the blood, while he writhes, foams at the mouth, and screams loudly enough to thoroughly terrify the three children waiting their turns in the next room. He also manages to give me two bloody gouges in the back of my hand and some impressive bruises on my shins (before his boots went flying). We only manage one and a half vials before the lab tech completely freaks out and gives up, and then Gabe scrambles, Gollum-style, to a far corner, where he hunches in a ball and shrieks about how much he hates me. The techs wring their hands, looking close to tears (both very young women, probably second-guessing any plans they had for motherhood any time soon), and suggest sedation for future draws.
FUN LEVEL: 10/10

The scene: the radiologist.
The complication: Gabe’s still holding a grudge over the blood draw. Instead of sitting in the waiting room, he chooses to hide in the curtained prep room, muttering things I’m actually glad I can’t hear. A cheerful radiologist sees him and is startled, but luckily he finds it funny rather than alarming.
FUN LEVEL: 1/10

The scene: back home.
The complication: I’ve dropped Gabe off back at school, where I signed him in and walked him to class. Went to the gym, ran on a treadmill (sweat stinging my bloody gouges), then came home…to an answering machine message from the school, asking where Gabe is. Luckily, she had just missed my signing him in; when they checked, he was safely accounted for.
FUN LEVEL: 2/10

SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT: Eric’s in Mexico again. Twooooo biiiiiiiiiits!

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My summarization ended with him shouting, wide-eyed, that he did not want to read it. “I don’t want to think about that! What if that happened for real?!”

I battled mentally with myself, Eric and I significantly silent for a moment in the front seats of the car, before saying something along the lines of, “I would hope people would stop things before they reached that point.” That seemed a bit lame, so, remembering a previous talk, I said, “This is why we’re learning about citizenship in Scouts. It’s important to know your rights. You have to know them in order to hold onto them.”

We all talked some more, discussing specific Constitutional rights (some of which he knew, some of which he didn’t), and I left the talk feeling moderately okay; there’s still plenty to discuss, and I thought the door was open for him to explore and ask more questions. He was thoughtful, which seemed like a good sign.

And then we woke up to this. Looks like I get to do some more discussing today. Wish I wasn’t trying to deal with a bad head cold at the same time; these conversations are tricky enough when your brain isn’t fogged up with Nyquil.

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For Valentine’s Day, I got Eric a carry-on suitcase, since he travels so much for work and his current carry-on bag has a busted zipped. This one rolls and is much nicer. He asked me whether I wanted him to get me a gift, and I told him no. This dinner, the one he was planning and for which he was not giving me any tempting details, was going to be more than enough of a gift. I was very, very right.

I had mentioned in passing to him that a blogger I follow had very concisely described the vegetarian approach to meal planning as being “a bean, a green, and a grain.” Eric took that and ran with it. Now, he’s not a vegetarian, but he planned four lovely vegetarian courses (the garlicky lentil soup was actually vegan) that left us both feeling perfectly satisfied in both belly and mouth. This beats flowers or boxed chocolates any day of the week, in my book! (I actually want to get him to write down the recipe for the soup, which, like most of the meal, he developed himself; it would be a perfect carbing-up meal for the days before a race).

Running is going adequately. My foot is fine; my groin is mostly recovered. I suppose all things work as they ought to, since I wouldn’t have had time for a long long run this weekend, anyway; Sam’s Scouting pack has “Mike Fink’s Winter Challenge” this weekend, which will involve spending a very long day out in the snow, playing games and such. It’s warmer this week and supposed to rain between then and now, so there’s a good chance the day will be spent in icy slush instead of snow, but I guess that’s what boots are for!

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But I think it is getting better. I didn’t feel any twinging yesterday, and I began doing some gentle stretching, which is supposed to be the next step. We’ll see; I’ll try a gentle test run tomorrow, and if there’s no pain, I will not push things. Not that I think I did last time, but you just don’t know. Ugh. I also intend, no matter how much I hate it, to stick to the treadmill until I’ve eased my way back into regular running, so as to avoid the icy spots that might have encourage the groin pull in the first place. Yuck.

But I don’t want to have another bad day, so I’m combating it with my usually successful strategy of Getting Stuff Done. I signed both boys up for swimming lessons at the Y, starting in a couple of weeks. See, Sam’s Scouts den is going to be working on an Aquatics belt loop, and the den leader blithely suggested that the boys “brush up” on swimming skills before that. Sam’s skills = nonexistent, beyond splashing around in chest-deep water. Feeling like a rotten, neglectful parent, I found the class that actually would accommodate both boys’ abilities and signed them up. This will be interesting; Sam looked horrified until I told him Gabe would be in his class (at which point, for some reason, he began cackling and dry-washing his hands, and I choose not to dwell on the meaning behind that), and Gabe…well, Gabe just looked horrified. This is the kid who only in recent history was willing to wade into water up to his knees. Lord, have mercy on this teacher. (I did warn them while registering. Can’t say I didn’t.)

Also did some tweaking to Sam’s website this morning, fixing an issue with log-in. (Thank you, Andrea!) He’s having a “blog revival,” coinciding with his telling his school friends about it and seeing their interest piqued. Of course, he also inadvertently led them to believe that he could actually code games, instead of just making a link list of his favorite online games, so we had to settle that situation immediately. (“No, Sam, I can’t just help you make a game with helicopters and lots of guns, no matter what you told Tony.”)

Very much looking forward to Valentine’s Day. Remember last year? Eric’s already working up his Super Secret menu plan for Monday night, and the folks to whom he’s told those plans have expressed deep envy. Also like last year, we plan to bribe the boys to go to bed early, so it can be a grown-up meal in luxurious peace. (No holds barred on that bribe. It’s WORTH IT.)

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“If somebody has been burned,” the mother leading the meeting said, “put the burn under running water until it stops hurting.

Sam’s hand was immediately in the air. “But, what if it was a gasoline fire?”

The mother looked confused. “The treatment would be the same…” she said.

I knew where his mind was, though, so I said, “Sam, we’re operating under the assumption that the person is no longer actively on fire.” He nodded.

(Then the mother nodded, too, and said, “Yes, if they’re on fire, you want to get out a hose and douse ‘em!” I saw Sam’s eyes nearly pop out and his hand start to rise again, and I quickly patted him on the back before he staged a coup and took over the meeting entirely. )

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Well, it turns out that the podiatrist to whom my doctor unwittingly had referred me was a member of my church, and a runner, to boot. He was very much on the same page as I am, regarding getting me running as soon as possible, and he thinks the nails don’t have to come off. He used what looked suspiciously like a Dremel tool on them, and then he gave me an ointment. Also, he said that in four weeks, I should not make an appointment, but should instead grab him at church to see how they’re doing. I, in turn, listened to him talk about how he really wants to do his first full marathon, and I encouraged him to come out to join our running club. All in all, it was an awesome appointment.

Lots of other things getting done this week. I decided it had been too long since I had my running gait checked, and on the off-chance that my shoes are contributing to my string of woes, I went to the running store yesterday to be filmed on a treadmill. The girl decided I actually did need more stability than what my shoes are giving me, so I left with some New Balance 1226s in hand; I’ll alternate them with my current Sauconys (using the Sauconys for shorter, easier runs, since they’re lighter, and the NBs for long runs).

Car check-ups. Boy check-ups. Everybody’s getting examined around here lately, with no exceptions. Sometimes, when things are going off-kilter, it’s time to stop and reassess everything. So far, I’m still waiting for big payoffs, but I do feel as though baby steps are being made, and it’ll all come right in the end.

And with that in mind, as I finally get to what’s really on my heart right now, toss prayers my dad’s way today; he’s got some skin cancer on his nose, and he’s having surgery for that today. Faith, optimism, and calm – that’s what we’re all about right now.

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But after they stayed the night, enjoyed a lazy Saturday morning and then left, things deteriorated. I mean, they always deteriorate when loved ones have to leave, but…her baby didn’t want to go, and when Gabe tried to encourage him (and I do mean encourage! He wasn’t explosive then), the baby got mad and screamed at Gabe. As they were pulling out of the driveway, we turned and found Gabe sobbing his heart out, thinking he’d hurt the baby. Sam, meanwhile, had fled the emotional scene to nurse his sadness in private.

I had to throw Gabe into the car for a birthday party, around which neighborhood I planned to go for a run until pick-up time. And all was going well; my foot seems fine. (Interestingly, when I went to the multi-sport expo, a physical therapist pointed out that my foot looked fine, but my tibialis anterior muscle (the one along the outside of the shin bone) was very tight and a little swollen. He rubbed it, and bingo, pain in my foot. So…I’d been icing the wrong spot. ) Unfortunately, about 7 miles into the run, my groin, which had been a little achy, suddenly began to hurt. I stopped immediately, and now I’m really, really freaked and angry and agitated and sad. Things I’ve read have said that running on slippery surfaces can encourage you to tighten those muscles and lead to a groin pull, which would make perfect sense, but I just don’t want to deal with this.

Super Bowl today. There’s a party to which we were invited, but the kids weren’t, and…a sitter for Super Bowl Sunday? In Wisconsin? When the Packers are in the game? Yeah, sure. About as likely, it seems, as me getting a worry-free run in.

(Oh, and bonus misery: last night, just before bed, Gabe plummeted off the computer chair, whacking his face into the floor. Cue massive blood and hysteria. He seems fine now, but his teeth are a little sore. I, meanwhile, demonstrated my parental skills by almost fainting. Mom of the Year, that’s me.)

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Ugh. So today, in what was not a shining example of parenting finesse, I taught Gabe the old “I am rubber and you are glue” technique. NOT as a rebuttal, mind you; I said it was just something he could, you know, keep in his head, so when Sam called him a name, he could just giggle and imagine in bouncing back. I guess some things are universal, though, because he immediately ran to tell Sam, and soon enough, they were all, “No, I’M rubber! YOU’RE glue!” back and forth and back again. Good times.

But then there came the lunchtime post-game.

“Mom,” said Sam, “not everything bounces off rubber. Swords wouldn’t.”
“Okay, but this is just for name-calling, Sam.”
“And metal spikes.”
“And cheese,” said Gabe.
“Yeah! Shredded cheese doesn’t bounce off rubber!”
“Maybe little blocks of cheese!”
“If they were big enough! But not slices!”
“We were calling each other names, not throwing cheese!” I said, and then noticed the folks at the table next to us giving me funny looks.

School resumes tomorrow. Good thing, too; another snow day, and maybe the cheese-throwing wouldn’t have been so far-fetched…

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Sam brought home tons of unfinished classwork and homework this weekend, much of which revolved around the dreaded long division. I booted up Khan Academy, and he and I worked through lots of exercises before tackling the assignments. His sticking point is in looking at two unrelated numbers and trying to divide one into the other when the answer isn’t cleanly even. Nine doesn’t go into sixty-one well, for example, and his brain refuses to put the two together and come up with six. It’ll just take practice, which he dreads.

We’re about to get whomped with a couple of snowstorms over the next few days. I just hope the one starting tomorrow holds off until the afternoon; there’s a funeral in the morning, and though I don’t know the man who passed away, I’m singing at the service, and it would feel sad if the weather kept people from attending. (Actually had to go get a dress for the service; I didn’t really have anything that seemed appropriate. Lots of clearance sales, thankfully.) Anyway, when all’s said and done, there might be a few feet of snow on the ground, which somehow doesn’t bother me so very much. It feels like we’ve gotten off lucky so far this winter, compared to most, and we’re overdue for a whomping.

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My foot is improving. Interestingly, I think I’ve discovered one thing that aggravates it quite a lot: sitting in chairs. I mean, like our computer chair, and for too long. If I’m on a couch, or if I have my foot up, it’s fine, but the desk chair has it aching pretty quickly. Okay, got to remember that! Ran today in the blowing snow, which was beautiful and fun and silly. I looked like a snowman when I finished.

Then I sold popcorn at the kids’ school for four hours. Less fun and silly. (Bag, staple, load into boxes, repeat, repeat, repeat.) The look on Gabe’s face when he saw me made it worth it, though.

Busy weekend coming up, with the Pinewood Derby, an anniversary party for the boy’s old preschool, and a multisport expo that I try to attend every year. Eric has tomorrow off, though, so we’re going to try to go here for lunch. I’m looking forward to that!

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Unfortunately, it all went downhill from there. Actually, the downward spiral started last night, when a nasty stomach thing hit – naturally – Gabe, who spent the night head down in the toilet, weeping for Eric.  I hit coffee with the running club only briefly after my run, heading home to fill my role as chosen puke-catcher while Eric went with Sam to his Scouts Pinewood Derby.

Only I misread the email. Derby is next week. Whoops. Eric was rightfully unamused.

So I spent the day babying Gabe, who is “that kind” of illness sufferer.  I myself prefer to be left alone to suffer, as usually does Sam, but not Gabe.  On the flip side, he is very appreciative. “Thank you for caring so much about me,” he actually said between sprints to the bathroom.

Tomorrow I sing in church, both services, and then I’m going to try to cram in a cross-training session before the Packers play the Bears and all hell breaks loose in this town. :rolleyes:  Actually, I plan to swim; I’ve been using a free trial at the “posh” gym in town, just to add variety, and I am sort of beginning to not grit my teeth to get through it…

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MICKEY: “Will you help me find some gooey fish?”
GABE: “Well, I’m not sure I want to. I mean, sticky, gooey fish…why would I want to do that?”

Sam, meanwhile, is upstairs; having gotten ready for school, he’s now confined to his room to finish the homework he didn’t complete last night, which was only a small part of what he should have been doing in the first place. He forgot to put the rest of it in his backpack – even after the teacher wrote it for him in his planner. And there was a lot of it, because he apparently had trouble getting anything at all completed during classes yesterday, when he was supposed to do it. This stopped being okay a long time ago.

You know it’s bad when Gabe stands at your shoulder, muttering that maybe you need to call Sylvan Learning Center for his big brother. Of course, he’s only doing what he’s done since discovering the joys of the commercial advertisement; I can “fondly” recall him stroking my hair a year or so ago and informing me that “[your] hair is so blah…you need Bumpits! Then you’ll look fabulous!” But now he is convinced that Sam is the one in serious need of help from the tiny people inside the television.

We’re looking into more possible solutions, really. I don’t think it’s that the work is too hard, but that he gets overwhelmed and bored very easily and simply checks out mentally. Not acceptable, but a different sort of issue than if he was really unable to understand what’s being taught. And, again, it’s all so familiar to me. Been there, I have.

Anyway. The day beckons. Onward and upward, right? Nowhere to go but forward.

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Today will be “interesting.” The kids have the day off from school for Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, and Sam is really just too big to be in the gym childcare room. I found out yesterday, though, that what I thought was a Couples Membership is really a Family Membership. Sam’s too small to use weight machines (not that I’d have allowed it in any case; no prepubescent chest presses, thanks), but they said he was just fine to use bikes and such. Today, therefore, he and I are going to work together. I want to do a little less extended pedaling (see: saddle sores), so we’ll do a hacked together High Intensity Interval Training, suitable for children. Ten on a bike, jump rope (we’ll see if I can jump on one foot!), balance board, more bike, etc. I want about 30 minutes total of biking today (did 45 on Saturday and an hour yesterday), and we’ll play with the rest.

Wish me luck!

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Biggest thing on my mind right now: on Saturday evening, I did my regular long run, and in the last mile, I felt a pain on the top of my foot. I stopped and loosened my shoelaces, which made the pain disappear, but it came back very slightly at the end. I was too scared to run yesterday, though I could walk without pain and even squeeze my foot without feeling anything, and I’m a little nervous to go today. It’s above my big toe, and, as I said, I can flex and squeeze the metatarsals with no problem, so I’m fairly positive it’s not a stress fracture. Can’t stop worrying, though. Of course, it sends me into my usual tailspin of evaluating every aspect of my life and training – cutting back on coffee/caffeine, studying my calcium intake, etc. It’s not even as though I recently changed anything in a drastic way; one week of marathon training, with fewer miles than I’ve been doing, and only one “hard” workout (the pace did for the flawed pace run wasn’t challenging in itself, just wrong for what I was supposed to be doing), shouldn’t have been enough to cause overuse injury. Probably, my shoes were laced wrong. Doesn’t make me stop freaking, though…

But we played Kinect Sports as a family last night, which took my mind off it for a bit. I don’t understand how Gabe, when pitted head-to-head against me, can consistently wipe the floor with me on nearly every event. What’s that about?

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I suppose, in the grand scale, me coming down with the illness Eric had over the holidays wasn’t nearly the worst thing that could have happened, especially considering that A) there was no vomiting or anything dramatic, and B) I think I got a less virulent strain of it, or else my immune system was strong enough to fight it better than Eric’s was. Still, it’s annoying to have to deal with being sick when I have no backup, while he didn’t even have to go to work, let alone deal with the kids all by himself. My only real failing during the illness has been a greater-than-average amount of meals being of the pizza or mac-and-cheese variety, so I suppose it’s okay.

We pick him up from the airport this afternoon. There was a brief period of consternation when one of Sam’s best girlfriends invited him to a birthday party (a ninja-themed one; now I see why he likes her, and can she be one of my girlfriends, too?) at the time when the plane is touching down, but it’ll all work out, even with Gabe’s anguish over not having been asked to the party. (Uninterrupted Daddy Time mends a lot.) I can’t wait to have him home again; it’s lonely in these parts without my partner home in the evenings. I’m not the teenager I used to be, who enjoyed lengthy phone conversations; I need face time. Plus, the phone hurts my ear after a bit.

Had to postpone this morning’s long run until after Eric gets home, which meant no running club this week. That’s okay, though; we’ll call it a “punishment” for completely butchering yesterday’s attempt at a pace run…

(...)
Read the rest of Lost my train of thought (275 words)

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I thought it was March that was supposed to come in like a lion, not January.  I just hope it’s a month mix-up, not a portent for 2011 as a whole…

Literally, the day began quite leonine, with the traditional running club “run in the year” being done in suddenly below-freezing temps and WIND LIKE WHOA.  Rough stuff! But that’s all good and worth it.  After all, friends make things like gusting weather way more bearable.

What’s not so much fun is figurative lion stuff, or, to cut to the chase, fleeing a football-watching party with a shrieking, struggling, flailing kid in your arms who’s trying to rip off your face.  I hate being “those people” SO MUCH.  So then Gabe got tossed in bed immediately, amid alternating howls of anger and wails of contrition (he was honestly sorry, but he still couldn’t stem the tide), and we all slumped our shoulders in exhausted surrender.  You win, 2011, but only the first battle…

I feel challenged, somehow, to up my game.  Marathon training begins tomorrow.  My primary resolution for the year is to get back to the strength and core training routine I desperately need, but I also want to focus my running a little more clearly.  Hills, speed work…I’m coming for you.  It begins. 

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The nice thing about shorter races (ones I can finish in less than an hour) is that they don’t require nearly as much forethought. I don’t taper, and I don’t worry about the pre-race dinner, and in fact, we spent the evening at Dave and Buster’s. What can I say? It’s a fun time. Frankly, it’s a little terrifying to watch Gabe destroy everybody in his path with guided missiles, much in the same way that I get chills over his knack for knocking out everyone else in boxing games on the Xbox. Belly laughs were had, though, and all will sleep well – including me, which can only help my racing tomorrow. I don’t know how much I’m going to try to kill it, thinking about my typical paces of late, but we’ll see.

I need the ego boost, frankly. Today, I made the mistake of venturing back into another makeup store, and while I stood there looking bewildered, I was accosted by an overly helpful woman (customer, not employee) who informed me that the shade of lipstick I was wearing was very wrong and (her words, not mine) should really be worn only by…women of a certain ethnicity. She recommended mauve instead. I just don’t know how to handle that.

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After opening presents, Eric made a bunch of eggs, bacon, and hominy; then, when things were dying down, I put on my new running jacket (in purple!) and went out for a seven-miler. My stomach gave me issues, being full of candy and kringle, but it was still worth it to be out there on such a special day.

More relaxing is in order. I feel all cozy in my new holiday sweater Eric got me (it’s a tradition in our little family for everyone to find a festive sweater under the tree), and my coffee has spiked eggnog in it, which is adding to the lovely languorous atmosphere. Sam’s hit the “full and satisfied” state with all the Christmas goodness he’s unwrapped and eaten; Gabe is BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS, but I expect he’ll eventually hit his peak and descend into exhaustion. Eric is out, (fruitlessly so far) attempting to find a few ingredients with which to complete the dinner he’s got in mind, but if he can’t find anything, we’ll still be okay, as the boys have requested freaking Ramen for their supper. Whatever, man. I’m all about simple requests.

Hope your day is as full as ours. Can’t wait to spend the next week just chilling and resting up for the new year ahead!

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That lasted about ten minutes.

After that, we were off to the races, if the racers were Labrador puppies on speed and the event was some sort of mashup of “Double-Dare” and “Jack*ss.” It took until abpu two o’clock to me to hear the first “there’s nothing to do”…which I suppose is what happens when you try to rocket through your day and cram everything into the first few hours.

They made a list, which is shown above, of all they’d like to accomplish before returning to school. It’s actually quite a manageable list, so long as it gets spread over the whole vacation instead of tackled head-on in one afternoon. Tomorrow will be either baking cookies or a trip to Stonefire Pizza; getting them to agree will be the sticking point.

I’ll have to run early tomorrow; Eric still has a day of work before his vacation starts, and I’m so close to my mileage goal for 2010, I can almost taste it. Not giving up or slowing down, no matter how exhausted I already am. (How is it that, for an at-home parent, “break” can mean the absolute opposite? Not that it’s not fun, but it’s certainly no “vacation”! )

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But then I was stupid, and instead of running right inside the moment I got home, I grabbed my own shovel and worked on the driveway and sidewalks. My reasoning was that I was already tired and wet, so there was no point in cleaning up in order to get tired and wet again, but the upshot was that by the time I went in, my feet were numb, and they started to burn ominously as things thawed. Idiocy: let me show you mine. Also, I was tired, as I said, and the added exertion of the shoveling meant that I spent the rest of the day feeling drained.

And tomorrow begins the kids’ winter break from school. Sam whined at bedtime, saying that since there was no school, he ought to be allowed to stay up late, but I rebutted that he had gotten up early today, and bedtimes needed to relate to the day we’re in as well as the one we’re entering. “You want to stay up later tomorrow? Sleep in in the morning!” I suggested. He won’t, though. His brain, like that of most small boys, is hardwired to get as much fun out of free days as he can. This kid actually got up at five-freaking-AM this past Saturday; I found him watching cartoons when I came down at 5:30 to get ready for my run. He’s twisted. At least Gabe will only climb into bed with us when he gets up that early.

Anyway, I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with these boys over break. Luckily, Eric’s company has a very generous holiday shut-down, so only a couple of days will be just me and the kids, but over time, that just means one more person who’ll be counting down the minutes until order and routine are restored in January. I know this, and yet I haven’t made any plans – even tentative frameworks of plans – to stave off that moment. Recipe for disaster, or embracing relaxation in the hopes that being more laidback will pay dividends in lessened stress? You tell me.

Tomorrow, I should really consider wrapping some of these presents. Maybe.

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Well, Eric’s been messaging me throughout the meeting, where he’s apparently the only father in attendance. And none of the mothers are interested in talking with him, either, so since the activities are, I gather, kid-only, Eric’s been sitting in a corner, feeling ostracized. “Not me [next time],” he says. I can understand; even though the other dads were always very friendly toward me at the old den meetings, I know what it’s like to be the “other parent” at these things.

And now the poor guy’s going to have to come home and stay up late making his dumplings for the company potluck on Thursday (he’ll freeze them and then steam them the day of the potluck). There’s no way around it; he simply will have not much time other than late at night to do them, and at this point, those dumplings have become practically a staple of the yearly party. If they weren’t there, I don’t think he’d hear the end of it until the next year’s potluck. I wish I could help him, too, but since the “recipe” is very much an internal process, all I can do is facilitate. Bummer about this meeting; if we’d known how different it was going to be, I definitely would have gone with Sam, and Eric would have been able to make the dumplings earlier.

(Gabe’s finished the card, as well as another picture for his teacher, and now he’s shifted into full-on draw-draw-draw mode. He’ll fill page after page with squiggly little scenes of aliens, monsters, and robots before he finally hits his point of satisfaction.)

We’re supposed to get some snow tonight, too. Since we haven’t really gotten much yet this season, compared to what it usually seems like, I hope we do get a couple of good inches worth on the ground. Unfortunately, they’re also saying we’ll have some “wintry mix” tomorrow morning, which means that my mid-length run could be less than completely enjoyable. Not that I’d skip it, of course. But icy drizzle is unpleasant. Also, my Garmin is behaving abominably this winter, either refusing to stop when I push the button or else going completely nuts and jumping backward and forward in time. I think sleet might inspire it to go completely on strike.

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But when he told them a bit ago that it was about time to leave, Gabe began to panic. Suddenly, he decided that the movie seemed scary, and he didn’t want to go. Moreover, he didn’t think Sam ought to go, either. I comforted him and told him it was okay, but that I thought he might regret not going. We looked at some trailers online, but he still thought he would be too scared, so off went Eric and Sam without him.

The minute the door closed, Gabe freaked and changed his mind; he ran for the door and yelled, “Daddy! I’m coming!” So I bundled him into his coat and sent him off with them, fingers crossed. It didn’t last. A couple of minutes later, Eric called and said Gabe was crying, so he was bringing him back by the house. The poor thing sobbed as I let him back in, saying he was “scared that the movie things were going to come through the screen.”

I set him up with Henson’s The Christmas Toy and a promise that it wouldn’t be remotely frightening at all. He has popcorn and an unfurrowed brow. Sometimes, when you’re six, that’s what you need, especially when so much of the rest of your life involves trying to keep up with and be as old as your older brother. Six is not nine.

A lot of parenting multiple kids comes down to crowd control, and it’s simpler to deal with them as a unit instead of as individuals. I look at videos and movies of Sam at this age, and he seems so much younger than Gabe does. He had more choices to be so, and he didn’t have the same motivation to be older. Today reminded me of that. We’ve had this movie sitting around for a while, too “babyish” for Sam, so Gabe wasn’t about to watch it. But he got his break, his chance to be six, and he’s happier for it.

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Gabe is less willing, as it turns out. In his kindergarten classroom, kids are encouraged to “write notes” to each other, which can be put into cubbies to take home later. Last week, one of his friends gave him her phone number, scrawled in crayon, which we found precious, if a little precocious; he didn’t see any sort of implications in the note, so we kept quiet. Today, he brought home a couple more notes from this girl; he only had glanced at one side of them, which featured her traced hand, along with a signature. I flipped them over…and found hearts a-plenty. Gabe, to put it lightly, was appalled.

(I will note: no actual farting happened during the filming, despite any attempts at character slander from my costar.)

I’m relieved that Sam, meanwhile, remains innocent of any further attempts at flirtation with him. He comes home with playground tales that involve both girls and boys, but unless the young lasses see romantic subplots in the recess adventures of “Spy Force Five” (which they’ve dubbed themselves, racing around and solving crimes), it’s all quite platonic. Very relieved to have boys, at moments like this. (Even when they’re fighting, as at present, over what – or whom – to blow up next on Roblox.)

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That was many churches ago. Now we attend a Methodist church, and there’s no book juggling or even robes. I miss that part a little sometimes, but the part I love remains: making music in worship, and especially getting to do so with my husband. I have to admit to silliness between us on occasion, but it’s in good fun. Something about coming together in music brings us back to the goofiness of college, and suddenly we’re picking apart bass lines, critiquing voice leading, or making guesses about the arrangers’ backgrounds. (“That’s no Gmaj9!” I heard him mutter behind me tonight. “And would a French augmented sixth kill anybody?”)

We’re working on a Christmas cantata right now. The bug may have bitten us to offer instrumental arranging work for the next cantata on the schedule; eventually, it seems, all things come full circle. Who knows what comes next? Thank you, Dr. Beall, for this, too. In your studio, I gained so much more than just an undergraduate degree. (And my husband. )

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My kids are many things, but forgettable isn’t one.  We’re at a Boy Scout pack meeting right now, and there’s a presentation going on about animals in the winter. The presenter is very dynamically giving facts about animal habits and tracks and…I somehow knew it was Gabe he was calling on to answer a question, well before I saw, and I knew Gabe wasn’t going to be on topic or know the answer to the pneumonic being discussed.  Sure enough, Gabe’s offering of wisdom was only tangentially related, if valuable: “Never eat brown snow.”

That’s my boy.

I uploaded to Facebook a bit ago some pictures of letters they wrote to Santa; we handed them to Santa’s helpers at the company Christmas party, so some of Eric’s coworkers got to see them, and I guess Gabe is now legend for having the only letter that began with an apology and plea for clemency. 

Again, my boy.

(Oh, crap; he just got a dirty look from the presenter, who was rousing the crowd by having them repeat, “I want pizza with anchovies!” Gabe loudly said, “But I like bacon,” which I guess was irritating.  Okay, then.)

Sam used to be the vocal kid, hand in the air with insights that may or may not have been on topic, but now he’s a little more reluctant to speak up.  On the other hand, he’s in the middle of a crowd of kids I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know, giggling and whispering and making friends.  I always said that Sam could make friends inside an empty closet, and that’s still true. Kids seem to remember him and come up to him in crowds to say hi.

I wish I could be that memorable.

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But the kids had early dismissal, and maybe it was dealing with their excited bickering that eroded my energy. By the time I was delivering boxes to UPS, I could hardly muster the strength to plop the stack on the counter.

Long run tomorrow morning. It’s a sign of Runner’s Mania, likely, that I’m sort of counting on it to give more than it taketh away.

I did spend a little time with Eric tonight, talking through some of my race plans for the coming year. That’s a work-in-progress; tune in for more details later. Let it suffice to say that though he’s supportive and encouraging, my husband thinks I’m loony. It’s okay. He loves me anyway.

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So when he said he wasn’t interested in choir, I may have pressed, though I realized I shouldn’t push and I stopped. Months later, when the actual sign-up information came home, I was surprised and pleased that he had changed his mind and was going for it. (It later became clearer; a couple of his friends were doing it, and he decided to join with them.) Not much more was said about it until he brought home a paper about the upcoming concert. He needed a white shirt and black pants, and the other parts of his outfit were to be provided by the school.

He brought home a brown bag earlier this week. “It’s my bow tie and my cubbernuckin,” he told me, and I was felled entirely. Do you know how long you have to wait between instances of mispronunciations when your child is nine years old? When they’re toddlers, and every other word is a cute little mashup of nonsense, you take it for granted, but trust me, you’ll miss it when they’re all big and intelligible.

The concert was pleasant and enjoyable, much in the way that elementary school instrumental concerts aren’t. (Again, as somebody who’s been through the system quite thoroughly, I’m allowed to say that.) Sam wasn’t the most enthusiastic singer on the risers, but he participated gamely. Meanwhile, Gabe sat between Eric and me, singing along to every word he could, beating our hands to the rhythms with good accuracy, and whispering that he wanted to be in the choir when he’s in the fourth grade. They sang lots of holiday songs, including one Hanukkah tune that Gabe liked. “But it wasn’t the dreidel song I already knew,” he clarified on the way out.

“No, it was a different one,” said Sam, “and we’re learning another song in Hebrew.” After a beat, he mused, “You know, Hanukkah really isn’t much about Jesus…”

…and I was felled again. Twice in one week! A seasonal miracle! (And yes, we had a subsequent discussion about the differences between Judaism and Christianity, and why Hanukkah would be really very light on the Jesus.)

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Had to go get a screaming-in-pain belly-aching Gabe from school, where his deafening cries had everyone in a tizzy.  (And stopped at the drugstore for a just-in-case antinausea prescription for him, where he terrified those folks, as well.) Got home…and he was fine to the point of giddy.

Went for my chocolate stash and found the boxes nibbled open and shredded by tiny little teeth.  Squick!

Banker friend called to talk to Eric; wouldn’t talk to me. I called Eric (in Mexico), who freaked and desperately tried to call the bank back, thinking something was wrong with our account.  Turns out it was a sales call; he wasn’t so much “evasive” with me as “didn’t recognize my name.”

Kids were naughty at bedtime. 

I didn’t sleep well in my big empty bed.

Here’s to a brand new day! (Hopefully with 100% fewer rodents and rodent-related discoveries.)

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Sam is doing better behaviorally this year – no distracting or bugging the kids sitting around him – but his grades are suffering because he’s finally hit the level where late or missing homework gets counted against the grade. And has it ever… So his teacher and I chatted, and I told her that he has a planner that he’s reluctant to use, and we’re planning to have him get it signed by both of us regularly now. He’s not failing (yet), but he could be a letter grade higher than he is in just about every subject, which is maddening. When he does do poorly on a completed assignment, the majority of the time it happens because he didn’t read the directions well. That, too, is frustrating for us.

Basically, I have two smart, well-intentioned, very human sons. Could be worse.

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Then we went over to Ulta, which was a huge mistake and blow to my ego. All I needed was a blush, since the last one I masterfully picked out (Walgreens, as usual) is somehow the exact shade of my normal skin, so you can’t see anything at all when I put it on. I figured a big cosmetic store would be better, but my brain completely freaked out at all the products all over the place – stuff I’ve never even heard of – that I spazzed and left empty-handed and feeling like I need to turn in my Girl Card.

ERIC: “Didn’t you read ‘Cosmo’ or those other magazines? Didn’t they tell you what to do?”
ME: “When I was a young teen, until Mom made me stop.”
ERIC: “The sex articles?”
ME: “No, the fact that I couldn’t really process any of the beauty stuff very well, and it was becoming…mortifying.”

Oh, I’m such a little lady, with my un-primed (seriously? Primer? Like what you put under wall paint?) face and nailless toes. Why do I even try?

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But then he wouldn’t respond to me when I tried to talk to him, and I couldn’t really tell whether it was because he was tired or if it was something else. After talking with Eric on the phone, I dragged poor Sam out of bed and hauled us all off to the ER. (Let me tell you how pleased Sam was about this development… ) It took a very long time to get back to a room, where Gabe fell asleep on the bed and Sam sacked out across both chairs. I hunkered down on the floor and waited…waited…waited. The doctor came and felt Gabe’s belly, which felt…normal. He ordered a belly x-ray – normal. By the time he came back with that news and some juice for Gabe to drink, Gabe woke up from his nap and was positively perky. (In fact, he was extremely sassy, tossing barbs at me right and left. I told him his cheeks looked puffy, and he said, “Maybe it’s adrenaline? Duh?” Also, a toddler was crying in an adjoining room, and Gabe growled, “There are a thousand noises right now, and most of them are that baby!”) The doctor was laughing and shrugging, saying Gabe looked perfectly healthy, while acknowledging how frustrated this must make me. Gabe asked whether he could go to school in the morning, which made him laugh harder and say, “No reason not to, if you’re not too sleepy from staying awake here!”

Well, he has an appointment with his regular doctor this afternoon, and I’m trying to stay optimistic that she’ll have some sort of insight into what’s happening, but how much can you tell from examining a kid who seems completely fine? It’s maddening! But I suppose I did manage to sleep through the rest of my worries last night – you know, after I finally got to bed. Four hours of ordinary sleep: better or worse than eight hours of fitful?

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We got through Sam’s family tree project last night, or as much of it as we could do at home, anyway. He’s doing the rest at school, where there’s apparently an art class component. That certainly threw a hitch in things when we weren’t certain about the exact due date; most of the folks with kids in Sam’s grade whose phone numbers I knew had art on different days, so the due dates were wildly different. We ran into the mother of a classmate last night when we had to run out for printer ink, and when I told her we needed to print Sam’s work to take in tomorrow, I thought her eyes were going to pop out. “Chris had better not come home from Tae Kwan Do to tell me he needs to finish it tonight!” Sam assured her that he didn’t think Chris had art for at least another day.

The work itself went more smoothly last night than the night before, since we’d gotten through the “dates and places” stage and moved on to the fun information part. Sam was fascinated by how many military veterans were in our family, as well as by how many coal mining families. That part sort of freaked him out, as did the part where I went back a little further in history and mentioned how the families got much bigger and had many more incidences of “Infant Son” and “Infant Daughter.” No amount of explanation about better medical knowledge, sanitation, and general health improvements made him feel any more reassured. Sam is not my little stoic. (And I rather love him like that – not tearful and worried, of course, but sensitive to the idea of a parent’s pain.)

Tomorrow’s going to be complicated, with having to take the train down to Chicago to pick up my race packet for Saturday morning. Has to be done, though! Wish me luck!

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I was in a bad mood because of homework. Once again, Sam put off a project until the last minute, so we had to skip Scouts last night to work on it. (It’s due tomorrow, and it’s definitely more than two night’s worth of work, but that’s all we have…) This one is a “Family Tree” project, which had the potential to be interesting, but not when we have to battle through it relentlessly like this. Also, I’m a little confused about the point on the rubric where he’s called to “note ethnicity of each relative.” With the exception of two great-grandparents, every single other relative on the chart is from the Appalachian region (and those two were born there, too, even if their parents weren’t), and other than “caucasian,” I have no idea how to identify them as anything other than Appalachian. I counted, actually; you’d have to go back about eight generations to get to anything other than West Virginia for many of the lines, and a few more leaps are required to get to England for one of the lines my grandfather traced.

(I wish he was still alive for many reasons, my grandfather, but one of them would be to go over with him the family tree notebook he assembled. It’s invaluable, but some of the details are “interesting.” One distant cousin, for example, has his name followed by a cryptic note: “WW I, sheep entrails.”)

I really, really pray that by the time Gabe gets to this level of homework, Sam has either grown into better organizational skills, or else Gabe has a far different work personality. Handling two of them like this would drive me around the bend.

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Thank God I had to go down into the basement with a whining second child who needed me to check the dryer for his “skinny jeans” that weren’t in his drawer. Who knows how long that little trick would have kept going? Also, that robe wasn’t exactly organic cotton; it was going to melt long before anything else happened, so even if we got it before a fire, the smoke and stench would have been extraordinary.

(And yes, Mom, I know exactly where he gets it (says the mom who, when she was a girl, used to warm up her pajamas by briefly draping them across the top of the kerosene heater. Turns out you really shouldn’t do that, especially when the front of the PJs has plasticky pictures that melt quickly. Oops.)

Today is trying to kill me.

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Today, the newborn is somewhat different. (For that matter, as am I.)

But the next to last week of October has been established, therefore, as Birthday Week for 50% of this household, the days of our birth being a mere two days apart. Gabe turned six on Tuesday, and I entered a new racing age bracket by virtue of turning 35 today. (Extra five minutes to my Boston qualifying time, holla…) I imagine there will be some years that we celebrate together and some that involve separate parties; last year, for example, I didn’t really get a party, since I ran the Marine Corps Marathon that week, and so I was happy to share Gabe’s cake when I returned. This year, scheduling worked out so that nobody really partied, but Gabe got a special dinner on his birthday (he picked a tiny little Greek diner, for some reason, and loved it), and I…made crepes for the family. Whatever; they were good. And I went out by myself for a sushi lunch, as well as lots of free coffee from different places via internet birthday coupons, so it’s all good. (BOING BOING CAFFEINE WHEEEE!)

It’s therefore a low-key sort of Birthday Week this trip around the sun, and I think we’re all okay with that. ‘Tis a gift to be simple, after all. As I told the man serving me what I think was my fifth mug of coffee today, “I stayed alive another year! Go, me!” And go, Gabe, too. It might sound like a minor achievement, but from my perspective lately, and knowing and trying not to consider the alternative, I am thrilled beyond words to begin following my second son on yet one more orbit. Let’s go, baby!

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On the other hand, a father of another boy from Sam’s old den was also there, and he and I briefly chatted about it. He, too, is crazy busy, but we did some figuring: with five boys who, according to the pack leader, still want to do Scouts, and with meetings every other week, that’s only one meeting every ten weeks that each of us would have to commit to running. I can manage to find a sitter for that, if Eric happens to be out of the country. So we’re going to dig up the email list and see what we can manage; the other father suggested that we phrase it, “If you want your kid in the den, you have to do a meeting,” and that sounds fine.

Meanwhile, I was doing my best to keep Gabe occupied. When he started going nuts, I frantically scanned the Android app market on my phone for a game that he could play that wouldn’t be too noisy and that wouldn’t eat up every bit of my memory. Found a very, very basic jigsaw puzzle game that he immediately latched onto, even though it was obviously geared for the preschool set. The bizarre thing? Some of the bigger boys spied him playing it, grabbed him…and the next thing I knew, Gabe was absorbed into a small herd of kids, each eager to try a turn at this game. Um, okay…

It’s been a long week already. I want my husband back home!

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Gabe, meanwhile, continues to keep me gobsmacked. Dentist appointment for both boys today, and I went in with a clenched stomach. Last time, the dentist – who is really amazingly good – spoke to the necessity of getting through one solid appointment with Gabe. Gabe was absolutely terrified, but the dentist felt that if we could just get through a cleaning with no major trauma, Gabe would see that it was all right. He mentioned the possibility of a mild sedative – not to knock him out, but to keep him calm through the worst of it. Neither of us wanted to jump to that, but when Gabe burst into tears at the sight of the light over the chair, I felt hopeless. He had tried so hard to psych himself up, but it looked like it wasn’t going to happen.

The hygienist went to get the dentist, and in the meantime while we waited, she grabbed a picture book and started reading to Gabe. About halfway through the book, I felt him tense and draw himself up. “Wait,” he said. “Are you just going to brush my teeth and that’s it?” She said yes, and after he clarified a couple more times, he said, “Okay, let’s just do that.” It took a few extra false starts beyond that, but by the time the dentist came in, she’d managed to clean Gabe’s bottom teeth. The dentist did the top, flossed, and even just barely managed to get Gabe to cooperate with a minor polish. It was very helpful that Gabe leaped to embrace the idea of the water sprayer, asking for it every few seconds and demanding to hold it, push the button himself, and generally hog the whole office’s water supply until we had to cut him off.

“I can’t wait for the next time I come to the dentist,” he said at the end. And if that doesn’t beat all, I don’t know what could.

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(And this was after I delivered a lovely little self-righteous lecture to Sam about why he needed to study the Bible, using the reference about how babies have milk, but as we grow spiritually, we need solid food. Maybe Mama needs to put down the bottle sometimes, too.)

(Not that kind of bottle. Shut up.)

I got humbled on the run today, too, though not be any particular failure on my part. It’s just hard to maintain one’s poise while having gallons of water dumped on one’s head from heavy, lightning-streaked, clouds. “Squish, squish, squish” is not the sound of victory…unless you consider victory to be not throwing in the towel as water streamed over our faces. (Ah, running club: where insanity is actually contagious.) In that case, sure, I was successful – and then we all got to sit around looking like drowned rats over coffee mugs, while the other cafe patrons eyed us significantly and not approvingly. “But I don’t want to go among mad people.” “Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here.”

Is there any other way I can have the rest of my self-image shaken today? I’m a little afraid to put that out there…

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Things that make me feel happy today:
- Sam headed straight down to the shower this morning with no debate or complaining. (It’s a new routine this school year that we’ve instituted, partly to help wake him up and get him level-headed and partly because, well, he needs it. Switching from evening to morning was a jolt for him, but he’s getting there.)
- Gabe seems to be in a good mood today, too, though that might be because there’s string cheese in the fridge, and this kid adores it.
- Also, Gabe finished up the school week last week by having “not a single tear all day!” so I have high hopes for continued adjustment.
- I had a really nice 20-miler on Saturday, despite the rain that lasted through nearly the whole run. I’ve decided to treat this marathon as a reward for a year’s worth of hard running, so I’m going into it with no time goal and just a relaxed mind ready to enjoy every moment and fun sight.
- Saturday night, a moment after “lights out,” I crunched my small toes really, really hard into a door frame, and I was convinced at least one was broken. Took the day off, rested, and now they feel okay, thank God!
- Eric’s running, and he’s enjoying it this time around. It’s great to see him start something new like this and have it slowly become a source of pleasure!
- I’ve got kale in the fridge and kale chips on the brain for dinner.

I have a step-back week in marathon training now, which will feel lovely. This is another reason I feel compelled to make this marathon “for fun”: when I’ve trained for marathons before, I don’t recall feeling quite so relieved to reach the first step-back week between 20-milers, and I know that’s because I’ve done so much work this year. I really didn’t get much recovery time between DWD and beginning to train for this. Everything seems to be holding up okay, physically, but my paces are a smidge slower and my mind a touch more reluctant to push things…so I’m going to be conservative, which feels right. After all, many marathoners feel that training for one marathon a year is plenty for the body to handle; I’ve already done 3 marathon+ distances this year (Green Bay, DWD, and one 27-mile training run), plus plenty of 20+-milers leading up to those. I’m just over 1,500 running miles for the year at this point; last year, for the entire year with two marathons, I topped out at 1,850. Crazy!

Anyway, have to go pack lunch for Gabe; Sam’s a big fan of the hot lunch option, for some reason, but Gabe is reluctant because he detests milk, and the idea of requesting a different drink from the lunch folks intimidates him a little. I don’t mind.

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Rip my heart out, why don’t you? I know this is within the realm of “normal,” but that doesn’t make it easier. Yesterday, he told me he cried “only one time!” (which Sam told me had happened on the bus), but then he spent the next couple of hours at home being a raging terror, screaming about everything. I’m not sure that’s better.

But here’s the thing: last night, after I put them to bed with a story and a kiss, I was suddenly struck with a memory I hadn’t had in a while. I recalled lying on the floor in the hallway outside their room, waiting for them to drop off to sleep so that I could sneak down the stairs. At the time, it felt like such a crazy annoyance; why couldn’t they just go to sleep without me? Surely, they were big enough? But that period is long over, so that even the memory hasn’t drifted into my head for ages. I actually felt incredibly sad for a moment, because it struck me that the period of goodnight kisses and bedtime stories, too, would become nothing more than a memory in the not-so-distant-as-I-might-hope future. They’ll crash into their beds without Mommy even being a blip on their horizons, and the freedom to spend my evenings as I wish will taste a little bittersweet, I think.

Someday – soon, probably, as such things are reckoned – Gabe will climb onto the bus without a backward glance or thought. Soon, it’ll be a friend’s car instead of a bus. And I don’t even want to think about what comes after that, in those days when even a teenager’s rolled eyes at my peck on his cheek will be a precious memory.

So when he clings to my hand and tells me that a whole day is just too long to miss me, I’ll hug him and kiss him and tell him that, yes, it’s an awfully long time. But I’m right here, and I’ll always be right here for him, and he’ll carry my heart with him, on his wrist and in his own chest.

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But he likes his teachers, and he likes his classes, especially gym. He does refuse to buy a hot lunch, saying he’s “scared” to do that, but I certainly don’t mind packing a cold lunch for him. (Sam thinks he’s crazy, passing up opportunities for corn dogs and pizza.)

Tonight we pile on more, with our church’s Bible Blast kick-off. But both boys did it last year, so at least it’s not “new” for either kid. Sam, though, will be doing the highest level this year, with readings from an actual Bible instead of from the simplified graphic novel version, so that’ll be different.

Speaking of graphic novels, last night he “discovered” a graphic novel that’s been on his bookshelf for months, and it’s the “best book ever!” In a fit of exhaustion from myself, both boys were also led to discover Ramen noodles last night, which also got billing as “best ever.” Graphic novels and Ramen. Eric says I’m training them for college early.

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But he seems to be adjusting otherwise, at least. He had Spanish today; they learned “hola” and “adios,” though he scoffed and told me how he already knew that.

Sam…continues to attend school. He did have to write me a letter today, as an assignment, informing me of some of what they’re doing, which includes this. Pretty cool!

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Then Alysia came.

I think it’s safe to call that an “up.” We had so much fun all weekend long, including retrieving a giant aviary she’d bought on eBay. (Good friends don’t point out when their friend has obviously lost her mind, devising ways to house, not just one, but MANY birds inside their home…)

And then she went home. (Down again go I. ) And we got ready for school, and there was much excitement for my boys as they chattered eagerly about the fun they’d have. I, too, shared in the joy, and it came down to the first day, this morning, when all was in readiness, and they’d met their teachers last night, and it all seemed a definite “up.” I put their happy little butts on the bus, and I ran (yes, literally) the two miles to their school, beating them there so that I could see Gabe into his classroom.

Unfortunately, their bus was running late, so almost everybody was in the class already. I stood in the courtyard outside the window, peeping in to see if I could see Gabe. Finally, there was commotion at the doorway, as they arrived from the other side of the building. Gabe stood still in the door…chin ducked, eyes huge, lower lip wobbling.

Oh, dear.

An adult helper whispered in his ear, talked him into the classroom, and he began getting out his things. I started on the run home, not nearly as light in my running shoes as I had been on the way there. I didn’t cry when I took Sam to kindergarten, and I wasn’t going to cry today…until I saw that face. My baby is scared and sad at school. You can tell me about how quickly he’ll get over it, and about all the wonderful things he’s doing there, but until he’s home this afternoon and telling me himself, that’s the picture I’ve got in my head. It’s why my own lower lip is a bit wobbly now, too.